


Hide and Seek

by jeffersonhairpin



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Angst, Divorce, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent Elio Perlman, Parent Oliver, Recreational Drug Use, Teen Angst, Teenage Pregnancy, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:00:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 65,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21833305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeffersonhairpin/pseuds/jeffersonhairpin
Summary: Over the years Oliver feared that he would forget what Elio Perlman’s face looked like during that summer in Italy. His memory is refreshed if ever it faded, as the spitting image of him walks into an open lecture at the university in 2003.(Elio and Marzia accidentally conceive twins a year after the events of CMBYN. Oliver runs into one of them at a lecture in New York in 2003 and our boys meet up again.)
Relationships: Marzia/Elio Perlman, Oliver/Elio Perlman
Comments: 240
Kudos: 307





	1. Chapter 1

Over the years Oliver feared that he would forget what Elio Perlman’s face looked like during that summer in Italy. He spent many hours sitting in his office, imagining what Elio would grow older to look like. Would he grow his hair long? Could he grow a beard now? Would he remain forever coltish and skinny or would he one day finally fill out? 

He never had the nerve to ask for a picture though – sure he could have asked for a photo of the whole Perlman family together as a cover while they were still in contact, but Samuel would surely have seen through the pretence, and Oliver couldn’t stand him knowing how much of his heart was still left in Crema. It’s not like they ever spoke about non-academic matters anyway.

His memory of Elio as he was around 1983 is refreshed if ever it faded, as the spitting image of him walks into an open lecture at the university in 2003. His hair is longer, and he’s not lanky in exactly the way Elio was, and he’s wearing a plaid shirt and a pair of baggy jeans Elio never would have... but the resemblance is too close to be coincidence. 

Has Elio exchanged his soul for immortality like Dorian Gray? Has he been a part of some bizarre medical experiment? Does Elio… have a son? The first two somehow seem more likely to Oliver.

The timeline would suggest that the person before him was born not all that long after their summer, so with whom? Marzia, Chiara, someone new?

His thoughts are sent racing, on the edge of going into a tailspin, when his teaching assistant asks him if he’s ready to start and hands him a clicker for the projector. Pulled out of his head, he nods and the lights come down. He manages to pull himself together enough to give the most distracted lecture of his career but somehow not completely fail. 

Every time he looks up into the audience he finds himself staring at this Elio-but-not-quite as he takes notes in the front row, interest clear on his face, and each time it takes a moment for him to fully come back to his train of thought. At least it’s only a free public lecture; no one’s grades will suffer for his preoccupation.

The lights come up and he has to _know_ , or this apparition of Elio that’s sat in front of him taking notes for the last 45 minutes will haunt him for the rest of his life. He thanks his assistant and immediately takes off towards the rows of seats before him. Not-Elio is putting his notebook in a backpack and turns to give a casual grin as he straightens, positioning the bag on his shoulder.

“Cool lecture, prof.” He says lightly, and it’s eerie to hear his old nickname for Samuel Perlman coming out of not-quite-Elio’s mouth in not-quite-Elio’s voice. It makes him feel old to hear the term from this much-Americanised Elio.

“Thanks.” Is all Oliver can think to say at first. He’s trying to think of something to say next but not-Elio beats him to the punch.

“You kept looking at me, do I have something on my face?” He asks good-naturedly, that grin still on his face.

“I…” Oliver starts, shaking his head, “…Does the name Elio Perlman mean anything to you?”

“Sure does,” The kid replies, “That’s my dad. Sammy Perlman, nice to meet you.” He extends a hand, which Oliver shakes. He has a confident but not unnecessarily firm grip. 

“Oliver Lachman.” He replies, grateful for his reflexive good manners, because his mind is going haywire and he needs a second to calm it.

“How do you know my dad?” Elio’s son asks at first, before narrowing his eyes curiously and asking with a tilted head, “…You’re not _that_ Oliver, are you?”

“Depends, which Oliver is that?” He asks, sidestepping that yes, if his hope is correct he _is_ still _that_ Oliver to Elio, because Elio will forever be _that person_ for him.

“Oliver the intern of _grandpapa_ ’s, who dad had his big romantic summer with in the eighties?” He asks, with a casual enquiring tone that confuses Oliver.

Oliver is shocked. He can’t keep it off his face. How much has Elio told his children about them? 

With raised eyebrows he replies after a moment. “I uh… Yeah, I guess I’m that Oliver.” He coughs uncomfortably before continuing a little incredulously. “He told you about that?” 

“Sure, why not?” The kid’s nonchalance is a step further than even Elio’s was back then. Then again… Elio wasn’t really _nonchalant_ about what he did, he was just bold. 

In Oliver’s mind there’s about a million reasons why not, but it seems Elio has taken a very different approach to parenting than he has – perhaps something to do with the fact that this kid is definitely older than his oldest, making Elio a parent at 19 or 20 maximum – _with whom_ , his mind asks again.

How had Sami not mentioned this, even in passing? _By the way, Elio is to be a father. Now what you were saying about Heraclitus…_

It wouldn’t have taken much more.

They never discussed many personal details of their lives before losing contact but surely something this big was worth mentioning when Sami knew about what had happened between them? Or perhaps it was precisely because he knew that he said nothing. 

Oliver is lost enough in his thoughts that he doesn’t at first notice the silence that descends upon them. Elio’s son breaks it.

“You know, I’m just about to head home. He’ll be there, it’s not far at all. You should come see him.” He suggests kindly, with a light slap to Oliver’s shoulder. He seems to have inherited Elio’s tactility. 

“I probably shouldn’t…” Oliver begins, unsure and uncomfortable. What does one do in this scenario? He’s so used to being in structured, professional situations where the path forward is clear and mandated, but this? He’s so torn between wanting, _needing_ to see Elio and _needing_ to run away from this whole situation.

But before he can protest further Elio’s son is already shutting him down and pushing him gently towards his desk.

“Grab your stuff, man, it’s really not far and he’ll be stoked to see you.”

_Stoked?_

The kid’s easy enthusiasm is strong enough that Oliver can’t think of a reason not to fast enough, and before he knows it he’s grabbed his bag and is mere minutes away from Elio’s house, chatting with his son. He might as well gather some useful information from this kid who doesn’t seem to grasp how big of a deal this is before he arrives.

“So if you don’t mind me asking, when were you born?”

“What’s to mind?” The kid says with a cheerful shrug, as he strides purposefully. “Vienne and I were born in 1985. Mom wanted to make it back to her family in Paris before it all went down but apparently we were anxious to get out, so we were born at the villa, in Crema.” 

“There are _two_ of you?” 

“Twins, we’re like this.” He grins, crossing his fingers.

“Your mother is from Paris?”

“Yeah, dad said you guys had met – does the name Marzia ring any bells?”

“Oh.” Oliver says, surprised. He knew she and Elio had been intimate but for some reason he never saw them together. 

“Yes, I knew her… And they’re still together?” He ventures, hoping he’s not giving himself away. It’s not like he’s completely free himself since his kids don’t know, but with his wife agreeing with him last year that they weren’t truly a couple anymore, there’s a traitorous glimmer of hope buried in his chest. _It wouldn’t be cheating, we could break the news to the boys…_

“Oh, no. _Maman et papa_ raised us together but they were never together, at least not as a romantic couple.”

“That’s unusual.” Oliver comments neutrally, just to say something.

“Maybe but I guess we’re kind of unusual. It’s been pretty great though; they’re a good team.” He shrugs again, unbothered. 

They walk in silence for a few more moments before stopping outside a two story apartment attached to others on either side. It looks open and warm, with plants and art visible through the big windows. The front door isn’t even closed. It’s so different from the big suburban American Dream house Oliver lives in. 

His first instinct is to run. 

“This is all happening so fast.” He laughs, trying and failing to cover up the nervousness in his voice.

Elio’s son hears it and laughs genuinely. “That’s how life is, huh?”

 _Not for me_ , Oliver thinks. 

“I really don’t know if this is such a good idea Sammy.” His hesitation is clear in his voice, his body already half turning to go. “He probably doesn’t even want to see me.”

“It’ll be fine! He’ll be excited, I’m telling you.” Sammy insists, but _no, no, this is all moving too quickly_ … Sammy must see he’s about to lose the battle, so he calls out. 

“ _Papa! Viens á la fenêtre!_ ”

Oliver’s heart is immediately in his throat. He widens his eyes at Sammy in panic, but the boy just grins back mischievously. It’s only a moment or two before a familiar-but-different voice calls back, coming closer.

“ _Quoi? De quoi tu cries?_ ”

And suddenly – too fast – he’s staring up at Elio Perlman, twenty years after he left him standing on that train platform in Italy. 

It’s Elio that speaks first.

“Oliver.” His voice is shocked, but the clear burgeoning excitement in it eases some of Oliver’s fears. He’s surprised to be recognised so quickly, with his beard and suit – _maybe I haven’t changed as much as I thought_ , he thinks with a small thrill of relief.

“Hi, Elio.” He calls back simply, with a lame wave. 

“Oliver was giving the antiquities lecture I went to at the university today.” Sammy explains.

“I should have known.” Elio calls back, with an open smile plain on his face. “Come up! Or should I come down?”

Oliver wants to be on neutral turf for this so he says, “We could get a coffee?”

“Good idea.”

And with that Elio has disappeared, and his son is smirking over at Oliver, raising an eyebrow proudly. “Told you he’d be happy to see you.”

Oliver gives his arm a light backhanded slap, smiling back though he’s still apprehensive. 

“Yeah, yeah.”

With that Sammy heads towards the house, met at the door by Elio. They give each other those very European kisses on the cheek before Sammy calls over his shoulder, “It was good to meet you, ‘la muvi star’!”, and disappears into the house.

 _God, how much has Elio told this kid?_ He feels exposed, having that nickname called into New York air.

Oliver takes a grounding second to study Elio as he watches his son go up the stairs fondly.

Some of his predictions are right – he’s maybe a little taller but it seems he’s filled out into the body of a slim _man_. He looks good in his button down and loose jeans, artfully rolled up to reveal his ankles, as he used to do in Crema. He wears a pair of sneakers cut lower than those he used to wear, fully revealing those graceful ankles. His hair is longer, with the loosely pushed back curls reaching to his neck, and Oliver suspects that this older Elio could grow a beard were he so inclined. He’s got a pair of thin, dark framed glasses perched at the top of his head – _for reading or distance_ , Oliver wonders.

He turns to face Oliver with an easy smile, and it’s all the same but different. It throws him for a loop.

Not Elio though.

“I can’t believe it’s you!” He exclaims, immediately coming over and opening his arms for a hug. Oliver can’t help but respond, opening his arms to receive him. His assessment was right – this Elio is much more solid as he embraces him. He rubs a hand across Elio’s back once before pulling away, saying the first thing that comes to mind.

“I thought I was going crazy seeing you sitting in the front of my lecture.” He laughs.

“Apple didn’t fall far from the tree, did it?” Elio’s pride is clear in his voice. It warms Oliver’s heart to see how happy Elio seems to be with his children, with his life. He’s secretly worried that Elio was as hung up on him all these years as he was on Elio, so it’s something like a relief to see how perfectly he seems to have moved on. 

_He told his son about you though_ , a traitorous part of his brain whispers, soothing the part that feels misplaced betrayal.

“No, it didn’t fall far at all…” Oliver replies, not quite knowing what to say. 

Is it that there’s too much to say, or nothing left to say at all? 

It all suddenly feels terribly awkward to him and instantly he’s back to wanting to run away.

“I can hear you overthinking from here.” Elio says, looking deep into Oliver’s now-magnetised eyes with a smile in his own. “Let’s just get some coffee and catch up.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, merely starts walking and waves Oliver onwards – like father like son. 

It's still strange to think of Elio as a father. 

The coffee shop is only about a block away, but Elio keeps glancing back with a sly grin as Oliver trails behind him.

When they make it inside and sit down, a waitress is immediately at the table asking Elio if he wants his usual and what his friend wants, with a suggestive look. Elio gestures to Oliver for him to make his order. He orders a cappuccino, and the waitress is gone. 

“So,” Elio says, relaxing back into his booth with his hands in his pockets. This clearly isn’t quite the neutral turf Oliver had wanted.

“So,” Oliver replies.

“Where to start?” He asks with raised eyebrows before answering his own question. “…How are you?” 

Loaded question, really.

“I’m doing well. Finally got tenure at Columbia. I’ve got two boys; Jacob who’s sixteen and Matthew who’s fourteen.” He’s about to continue when it occurs to him that there’s not much more to tell about his life at the moment. Those are the things he’s poured all of himself into. 

Elio seems to notice his changing demeanour and jumps in. 

“That’s great! How is, um…” He doesn’t realise until that moment that he never found out Oliver’s wife’s name.

“Micol.” He supplies with a forgiving smile. “She’s doing well. She teaches at the local high school. Science.”

“Marzia teaches at NYU – she’s written a few books that have done well and she’s just about tenured too.” Elio responds, his deep pride clear in his voice. For a moment it makes Oliver doubt what Sammy told him – is it possible they _are_ together after all?

But then he continues, “She’s got a pretty serious boyfriend, going on about a year now. They met at the university. He teaches here but he’s Australian… Sammy can’t stop absorbing his slang.” Elio laughs before becoming serious again.

“...I should probably catch you up on how all of this happened.” He says sheepishly as their coffees arrive, taking a sip. Oliver is surprised to see that Elio’s is a plain black coffee; he wouldn’t have picked it. 

“You don’t owe me an explanation, Elio.” Oliver says, not wanting him to feel bad for not saying anything.

“No, I should have said something. You were important to me.” He says, lightly but earnestly. “You’ll always be important to me.”

Oliver meets his eyes for a moment before he becomes uncomfortable with how exposed Elio’s gaze makes him feel, looking down and gesturing as if to say _go ahead_. He’s not used to this kind of meaningful interaction anymore.

“It’s not very complicated, honestly.” Elio shrugs. “I was still pretty messed up about everything the next summer when Marzia came to visit and we got pretty drunk one night and then one thing led to another, _et voilà_ – nine months later two kids. My parents were pretty relaxed about the whole thing, really. They _adored_ little Vienne and Sammy so they were more than happy to help us financially while we went to university and started raising them. Marzia’s parents were less happy but they came around eventually… It’s all in the past now and they can see how happy we all are, so really it all turned out great.”

It’s both warming and heart-breaking to see how happy Elio has been in his life without Oliver as his eyes sparkle over his cup of coffee. Up close he spies a few fine lines beginning on his face but it’s clear that they’re from years of laughter, not unhappiness. It aches a little – not that Oliver has been unhappy in his life, but there’s that tiny unacknowledged part of him that wishes Elio had held something back from his life for him the way he’s preserved something for Elio. He quashes it down to speak.

“I’m glad.” He makes himself say. “I was a little surprised to learn you had a kid, let alone two. I don’t know why I couldn’t picture it but… It really suits you.” His earnestness comes through clearly on the second part, of which he is glad.

“Fatherhood seems to suit you too.” Elio says. “I like the beard.” There’s a hint of cheeky flirtation in his voice but not so much as to be uncomfortable if Oliver were still committed to his wife.

“Yes, I finally gave in – it was too much effort to bother shaving _every_ morning _and_ going for a run.”

“Still keeping up the jogging then?” Elio replies, an eyebrow raised.

“You don’t?”

“Fuck no! I’m glad to hear it’s still believable that I might,” he laughs, “But I do enough running around the city to get to jobs, and besides, I’ve got better things to do – like sleeping in until eleven or making a breakfast Mafalda would be proud of for everyone.”

“Are you the Mafalda of the house then?” There’s a grin in Oliver’s voice.

“Absolutely – you think the tenured professor has time for such trivial tasks? The kids can make a pretty mean breakfast though, when so-inclined. Vienne was better at it than Sammy before she left for school, naturally – she takes much more pride in her French heritage than the American side.”

There’s a comfortable silence for a few moments before Elio speaks. He doesn’t meet Oliver’s eyes as he grips his mug, and looks uncomfortable for the first time since he’s seen him again.

“My dad never told you about it all because I asked him not to.” 

Oliver lets that sit for a moment before speaking in a carefully neutral tone. “Why is that?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Elio looks to the side, thinking. “At first it just seemed like a stupid, embarrassing mistake to have made and I thought I was going to ruin the kids’ lives and mine and I didn’t want you to see me that way… but then a couple of years went by and I hadn’t destroyed our lives and we just relaxed into it. By then it was kind of too late to say anything, and then you two fell out of contact and that was that.”

He meets Oliver’s eyes again, searching them for a reaction. 

“It was probably for the best, honestly.” Oliver says after a pause, finally forced to break his composure by running a grounding hand over his face. The weight of seeing Elio after so long hits him and he can’t be anything but honest in the moment. “Any news about you at all probably would have just brought it all back.” 

He takes a breath in the silence Elio leaves open.

“…Why aren’t you upset with me, Elio?”

Elio tilts his head, looking confused.

“Why would I be upset with you?”

“Well you said you were still messed up about everything that happened, a year later when you… you know.”

Understanding dawns in Elio’s eyes before he speaks, shaking his head.

“Well yes, I was upset back then, but I know why you made the decisions you did. Things are different now but… I see why you would have chosen the path you did back then. And those decisions led to my children being born – god knows what I would have gotten up to without them to ground me,” he laughs. “…I like my life. I’m not going to dwell on what could have been because what _has_ been has been pretty amazing. You know how it is; you’ve got kids.”

Oliver takes a breath, steadying himself as years of guilt war with an uncertain relief.

“Part of the reason I let your father and I lose contact after a while was because I secretly thought that maybe he was angry with me for what I did to you – he always replied but he never talked about anything all that personal in our exchanges.” 

Elio’s face turns sympathetic at that.

“He’s always liked you Oliver, you know that... But you didn’t do anything to me – we loved each other.” 

Oliver can’t tell if Elio realises the weight of his statement. He lets out a quiet breath at the words as Elio continues. 

“He knew what it was like here and how you probably grew up, and he wouldn’t have wanted to drag up any unwanted memories that could affect your life here. Especially after you announced your engagement… did it help, that everything was cut off?”

“I don’t know.” Oliver replies honestly, looking down into his coffee at though it could comfort him or provide answers.

“…Are you happy, Oliver?” Elio’s concern is plain on his face for the first time. Oliver can see his heart breaking at the thought of him being unfulfilled in his life.

He considers for longer than he thinks perhaps he should.

“Like you say, it’s impossible to regret the things that led to your children, and I’ve been happy in raising them but… I don’t know. It’s hard not to be disappointed sometimes. I put all my eggs in the family basket and sometimes I don’t think I did everything right.”

“Well of course you didn’t.” Oliver frowns at Elio; where is he going with that? 

“No one does everything right in parenting, or in their life. But I can’t imagine you’ve been anything less than a wonderful father.” There’s kindness and wisdom in Elio’s eyes – he still seems youthful and alive but it’s clear he’s learned and matured, in that moment. _In the things that matter_ his mind supplies. For the first time he feels younger than Elio, as the younger man places a hand on Oliver’s, to comfort him. 

“You haven’t met my sons.” Oliver laughs half-heartedly.

Elio frowns again. “Are things okay, at home?”

Oliver pulls his hand away to rub his face again, sighing. 

“I’m just talking out of my ass.” He says, making himself smile. “Things are fine – they’re great kids.” 

He’s not lying, but he can’t bear the concerned look on Elio’s face for another moment, so he stands abruptly.

“Look, I’ve got to get home, but it was great seeing you.” He says before his mind can think of something better. Part of him never wants to see Elio ever again, embarrassed at the way the conversation has gone. He needs to get out before he embarrasses himself further and makes Elio think his life has been an even bigger disaster.

Elio stands too. “Yeah, me too.” He smiles to mask his confusion at Oliver's sudden departure, digging into his pocket and producing a simple business card with his name and number on it. “Here’s my number. Write yours here.” He pulls out a pen, insisting that Oliver writes his number on a napkin before he goes. 

“It was really good to see you again, Oliver.” Elio smiles softly, his eyes crinkling sweetly at the corners. 

“You too.” Oliver finds himself saying earnestly, opening his arms to receive Elio’s parting embrace and quickly making his way out of the shop and down the street. 

He's not sure whether he's grateful or resentful that Elio has had the foresight to give Oliver the chance to call him as well as give himself the chance to call Oliver, when he inevitably chickens out.


	2. Chapter 2

Elio finds himself frowning on the walk home. 

At first it was so nice seeing Oliver, the shock of it making him giddy and excited. He knew he was going to explain himself – who knows when he’ll get another chance? – but it had so quickly turned sour and upsetting. He’s always pictured Oliver moving on easily and completely, and made his peace with everything that happened partially based on that. But the way Oliver acted when they spoke is making him question it all. 

Is he not happy at home? Are his children having problems? Is his work unbearably boring to him? Does he not love his wife anymore – did he ever love his wife? Was he not attracted to women at all? When he kissed and danced with Chiara that summer, was it all just for show?

Has he been imagining the wrong life for Oliver this whole time?

All he knows is that there’s something Oliver didn’t want to talk about with him and that he’s going to call the little weasel if he doesn’t call him in the next few days. Maybe it’s not his business anymore but he’s going to _make_ it his business – it’s ‘Ulliva’, after all. 

Sammy is in his room when he gets home which gives him more time to think through it all. Over the course of making the food he has time to settle his agitation and think a little more rationally about what is and is not his business. 

As he becomes less vexed, however, he finds his thoughts slowing down from the state of excitement they’ve been in since he saw Oliver standing below his window like Romeo. His mind turns to softer and more admiring things. 

_God, he looked so good with that beard, I’ve never seen him in a proper suit, I bet he’s got so many students knocking on his door after class for help they don’t need just to get a closer look at him…_

Over the course of making the dinner he finds all of his old feelings returning. Perhaps he should have been less casual with it all, let on a little more how strong his feelings – though comfortably buried for a long time – will always be. _Perhaps he was strange because I was being too open, too casual. I just didn’t want to make a married man uncomfortable._

Elio wants to beat himself over the head and start the day again and again until he gets it right. 

It’s a miracle that the food gets made without incident because he’s honestly too preoccupied by this unexpected development to be playing with fire. He’s almost done when Sammy emerges, placing his mp3 player down on their small wooden dining table.

“So how was the catch up?”

“Hmm?” Elio hums, suddenly pulled out of his head. “Oh, it was nice,” he says distractedly, turning back to stir the simmering sauce. 

“ _Oh_ , just nice?” Sammy says, gently mocking him with an innocent expression. “Your fateful reconnection with the long-lost love of your life twenty years after he left you standing on a train platform in Italy was _nice_ , was it?”

Elio gives him a playfully reproachful look before he turns the stove off and turns around. He’s suddenly serious, ready for help to try to parse it out. He’ll talk to Marzia about it later but Sammy will want more details than _‘nice’_.

“I don’t know, Sammy. It was crazy to see him again but he seemed really…” he trails off, frowning thoughtfully, still not entirely sure what he means to say for all his thinking. “He seemed off.”

“Well it was probably quite a shock to run into you. I think I’d feel kind of off in his place.” Sammy shrugs.

“I know, but he was just… different. I’m certain he held important things back. I can’t blame him for not wanting to get into potentially difficult subjects over coffee, but he seemed… dissatisfied. I couldn’t tell if it was his work or his family or his wife or if it was because I was easy and casual about the whole thing in my excitement, and it’s killing me not knowing.” He sighs frustratedly.

“I just want to lock him in a room and make him tell me everything I’ve missed!” Elio exclaims exaggeratedly with a laugh.

“You’re so nosy, _papa_.” Sammy laughs, getting up to set the table as they hear the door open and close downstairs.

“Ugh, I _know_.” Elio groans, joining him as Marzia’s footsteps ascend the stairs.

“Smells good.” She comments breezily with a smile as she passes by and into her room to change.

A few minutes later they’re all settled at the table with the meal and their wine, and Elio can’t hold his tongue a moment longer.

“I had coffee with Oliver today.”

“ _Oliver_ , Oliver? Crema Oliver?”

“The very same.” Elio replies, taking a sip of his wine.

“ _Mon dieu!_ How is he?” Marzia exclaims with a huff of surprise, and then a playful grin. “Does he still have all his hair?”

“Yes, he does.” Elio replies with feigned offense on Oliver’s behalf. “And a beard for good measure.”

“Ah, I always thought he would have an artful professor beard by the time he was forty.” 

“Mm, it suits him.” Elio agrees before continuing. “He’s well. Tenured at Columbia, same wife, two boys – sixteen and fourteen.”

Marzia gestures with her fork for him to continue but he shakes his head.

“That’s really all he said. It was quite brief.” Elio says, surprise and disappointment clear. 

“That’s odd; I would have thought you’d both have a lot to say.”

“That’s the strange thing,” Elio puts his utensils down and continues. “I explained to him everything that happened and why _papa_ never told him anything and he seemed affected by it, and he _started_ to talk about more personal things but then he suddenly got uncomfortable and said he had to leave. I think I may have offended him by treating the situation too casually.”

“Well, not everyone has remained as forthcoming as you with age, Elio.” She fixes him with a humorous look. “And Oliver was never one to just come out with personal information anyway.”

“No, he wasn’t forthcoming with people he didn’t know very well, but…” Elio pauses. “I suppose I’m just not used to being one of those people.” 

Elio’s sudden hurt despondency at his realisation is palpable in the room. He supposes that’s what’s really been bothering him about his conversation with Oliver – in many ways he was looking to simply jump into their old ease with one another and reconnect, but it feels as though Oliver kept him on the outside the whole time, and left as soon as he felt himself letting him in. 

It’s a jarring cut from ‘ _call me by your name_ ’ to ‘ _none of your business_ ’.

Marzia leans over to place her hand over his in comfort, but Sammy – ever the optimist – just says, “Then stop being one of those people,” as though it’s obvious. “Call him. Hang out. Get to know each other again.”

Elio sighs, recognising that he’s beginning to wallow. “I did get his number.” He admits. “I was thinking of calling in a few days.”

“Screw that.” Sammy says, scrunching his face with the artless wisdom of youth. “Why pretend? Just call him tonight and tell him you want to catch up more over some drinks.”

Elio looks to Marzia for her opinion and she shrugs. “It can’t hurt not to play games, especially if you think you may have treated it too lightly. Don’t push him too much or lay all your cards down before you know his situation, but the last time you two danced around something you wanted you wasted most of a summer with your heads up each other’s asses fucking other people.” She says it matter-of-factly with a delicate shrug, daintily spearing a piece of pasta and placing it in her mouth. Sammy bursts out laughing at that.

“Why do I surround myself with people so much smarter than me?” Elio groans, rubbing his face and glaring at Sammy as he sets Marzia off giggling at the release of tension. “Anyone else would have just told me not to bother someone I haven’t seen for twenty years and it would all have been over. Fuck you guys,” he jokes, turning his face to the side and smiling a private little smile at the prospect of reliving even a shadow of their bold summer triste. 

Marzia and Sammy finally stop laughing at each other’s laughter and begin chatting about their days, leaving Elio to mull over his options and tell himself to be ready for Oliver wanting nothing more than friendship. If that. 

_Even if he’s not completely happy with her he’s not just going to up and leave his wife and the mother of his children for you now any more than then... But what if, what if, what if…_

It’s 8pm by the time Elio decides to remove his head from his ass and just call. _You’re too old to be playing stupid waiting games_ , he thinks. The phone rings five times, Elio’s anxiety increasing with each one. 

_I could just hang up and he’d never know who had called, I could just say wrong number and avoid this, I could just put it off another day or two._

He takes a fortifying gulp of his second glass of wine, and stubbornly holds the phone to his ear.

“Oliver Lachman speaking.” 

Elio’s insides instantly melt.

“Hey, Oliver! It’s Elio!” he begins. “…Perlman,” he attaches, lamely. 

_Did I used to be smoother than this?_

_…No._

“I don’t know any other Elios.” Oliver jokes, his tone surprised.

“I uh,” Elio pauses, opting for honesty. “I was going to wait a few days to call but that felt kind of… stupid,” he says haltingly, thinking as he speaks. “I was just wondering, if you were free to get a few drinks sometime this week?”

_God, I feel like a teenager asking his crush to the prom. Except the crush is (possibly unhappily) married and has two children and so do I._

On the other end of the phoneline Oliver reaches frantically for some way out, despite the youthful part of his heart screaming at him to say _yes, yes, yes!_

He desperately wants to see him again, but he’s scared Elio will lose interest once he sees how boring his life probably is by comparison. He feels as though he’s dulled as a person over time, and the thought of seeing the interest fade from Elio’s eyes is… excruciating. Unbearable.

“I’m not really free during the week,” he lies.

“Are you free Saturday night?” Elio probes, and Oliver replies looking for any excuse.

“I’ll just ask Micol if we’re doing something, I think we might have dinner plans.” He pulls his face away from the receiver and calls out, “Micol! Are we doing anything Saturday night?” 

_God this is so childish_ , he thinks as he prays she’ll say he’s busy, _playacting like a stupid teenager when I know what I want and there’s nothing stopping me anymore…_

“No, I don’t think so!” She calls back from down the hall, condemning him to have what he truly wants. He should have covered up the receiver and lied, told Elio she said they were busy like a child getting out of a sleepover by hiding behind his mother’s coached _‘no’_.

“Is that a ‘yes, you’re free’, I heard?” Elio laughs on the other end of the call, and oh, how badly Oliver wants to hear that laugh against his ear as he wrestles Elio to the bed once more. 

But he doesn’t tell Elio that, instead he says, “Yes,” and draws a bracing breath. “I’m free Saturday. Where were you thinking?”

Elio suggests a place and time and Oliver agrees. 

They exchange ‘ _see you then_ ’s, hang up, and that’s that. 

Oliver sits breathing by the phone for a moment. 

_If we’re going for drinks maybe the alcohol will make things easier than the coffee_ , he thinks, but the sensible part of him tells him not to take the risk and stay sober as much as possible lest he let something slip. _But Elio always liked the part of me that was honest and took risks…_

Does he want Elio to fall into his arms and pick up where they left off? It sounds ridiculous to him after ruling it an impossibility for so long, but what’s the other option? Let this slip through his fingers again and spend the rest of his life alone for no reason once Micol inevitably finds another, better man after they tell the kids? How would being with Elio affect the boys? What would they all think about him being with a man when none of them knows he even likes men… Could they just avoid all that by keeping it a secret? No, he couldn’t ask Elio to sneak around and hide for him – he’s clearly comfortable enough with himself to tell his son he likes men…

But he's getting ahead of himself. Elio didn’t mention a partner, but he didn’t mention being single either and they’re just having catch up drinks… 

Shouldn’t he know what he wants first though, to be prepared?

Now that something is actually happening it scares Oliver how much he wants this thing he’s spent a lifetime pushing away from his body and out of his mind. It scares him how wild his imagination is running now that it feels like foolish impossibilities may become entirely possible again. He’s not used to wanting anything this badly anymore – except perhaps occasionally a finger or two of whisky after a long day of thinking and acting, but that’s hardly the same thing.

Truthfully, he knows exactly what he wants. He’s just scared to reach for it, because what it used to be might not be there anymore…

But his thoughts are interrupted – Matthew calls out that he needs help with an essay, and Oliver knows those dishes in the sink aren’t going to do themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit shorter but I wanted to get it out and see how people feel about it before continuing.
> 
> There's going to be some thought-angst but I don't think I'm going to keep them from admitting everything and picking things up again for long. I'd rather write about them rediscovering each other than sucking at honest communication lol. And also writing about how their families react/work together once they're together sounds fun.
> 
> I feel like this chapter is a little rocky, but I'm still sorting out the characters and the plot - is anyone else getting that or are we good?
> 
> Please let me know any and all thoughts in the comments :)


	3. Chapter 3

It’s 5pm on Saturday and Oliver regrets telling Elio he wasn’t free during the week. 

Like a child putting off going to the dentist all it’s done is allow him to work himself up about it for longer. He’s standing in front of the mirror debating what to wear. His grey suit? Too formal. Certainly not a tie. Probably a button down shirt, but what pants? Jeans are risky and could easily be too casual, so slacks? Which ones?

Micol spies him as she passes by the room and backtracks to enter.

“What are you fussing about again?” She leans against the doorway and folds her arms, a curious look in her dark eyes.

“I’m going out for drinks with an old friend from Italy.”

“The thing with the classics professor? But that was so long ago!” She exclaims, surprised, before coming over to help. “It would be nice for you to have a friend outside of work though. Is it a nice place?”

“That’s the thing, I don’t know. I’ve never been.”

“So not jeans then, slacks.” She replies, reading his mind. 

“My thoughts exactly.” This mental synchronicity on little things is what made them such a good team for years, when they were still something like in love – though neither had expected to marry into a whirlwind of passion.

She reaches into the wardrobe and pulls out a light blue button down and a pair of grey slacks, passing them off to him.

“Keep it simple, black belt, black shoes.” She knows Oliver has a tendency to overthink these things and leaves the room before he can complicate it, calling quietly from the door with a wink, “Comb your beard, maybe you’ll meet a nice woman at the bar.”

_God, how have I still not told her anything?_

Oliver has often wondered whether he and Micol might have reached another level, become more intimate and stayed in love, if he hadn’t been holding back this huge part of himself for their entire marriage… it’s too late to think about such things now.

…But it might not be too late to think about Elio again…

He shakes himself and does as she suggests, standing in front of the mirror with a sigh. He looks good, but he’s certain Elio will look better. _He’s probably got something interesting to wear…_

There’s still forty-five minutes before they’re supposed to meet and Oliver estimates the bar is only 25 minutes away by taxi, so he heads downstairs to distract himself and escape his thoughts. 

“Where are you going, dad?” Matty asks from the table where he’s writing something, with an empty glass of orange juice beside him.

“I’m going to see an old friend.” Oliver replies, grabbing the empty cup as he passes. “Want a refill?” 

“Sure. Who’s the friend?”

“Just someone I knew in Italy when I spent the summer there assisting a professor.” He brushes the statement off as he refills Matty’s glass and grabs himself a beer. For the first time in a long time he’s dwelled on their summer together for long enough for it to feel strange, talking about something so important as though it never mattered. It’s no longer deniable, beneath the surface.

“Italy?” Matty scrunches his nose. “But that was in the eighties?”

“Yep, it’s been a long time.” Oliver agrees as he sets the glass down, joining him at the table and taking a long swig from his beer.

“It’s weird to think of you being the assistant rather than the professor.” Matty grins. “How did you know him?” he asks, then tacking on the end as an afterthought, “Or her.”

“ _He_ was the son of the professor I was staying with. We ran into each other again recently, and we always got on really well, so...” He shrugs. _That’s one way of putting it._

“You’ve never mentioned him.” Matty comments, taking a sip. “What’s his name?”

“Elio Perlman.” It’s the first time he’s said that name aloud to anyone other than his wife since he left Italy. Twenty years.

“Weird name, I like it.” Matty says dismissively before returning to whatever he’s writing down. 

Oliver lets out a small huff of laughter, his heart clenching a little at his son’s passing approval of some aspect of Elio. Distraction has not gone well for him.

Now he’s just thinking about how long it’s been, that his fourteen year old son has never heard Elio’s name before – what are they even going to talk about? He’s on the verge of admitting to himself that he’d do just about anything to take up with Elio again, but nowhere near admitting it to Elio’s face. What if it’s terribly awkward? What if they can’t be at ease again after so much time has passed? 

What if his reluctance to just come out with it ruins this like it almost ruined their summer?

_Don’t be silly Oliver. You were nervous but he was immediately at ease with you when you spoke._

Perhaps too at ease though – was it not nerve-wracking for him to see Oliver? Did it not mean the same thing to him? Are they hopelessly out of sync or will their differences work together again? 

_He said you were still important to him and you saw he meant it and his son called it his ‘big romantic summer’, that’s got to say something, right?_

He sits in silence for long enough to finish his beer and then decides, fuck it, he’ll just be a little early. He can’t stand marinating in his thoughts like this – usually he would just shut them down and go work on another book or something but the whole thing is suddenly open ended, blown open… 

Why are the things that matter so complicated?

Elio finds himself doing a similar dance, shifting between telling himself to be as he is with Oliver to give him a chance to relax, and telling himself that Oliver will just shut down again if he doesn’t play the game at least long enough to find out what he might want for them.

He fidgets in front of the mirror, telling himself it’s neither outrageous nor disappointing – plain white t-shirt, slim black pants, black boots, and a short, brown velvety jacket. Marzia walks past him as he’s fiddling and gives him a light, playful swat to the head. 

“Stop torturing yourself and have a glass of wine, you look great. There’s no point fretting until you know what you’re dealing with. Overthinking will just make you act weird.” Her accent is still there, though naturally her English is better, being an English Literature professor in New York. 

Elio knows to take her advice – he wasn’t just joking when he said he thought she was smarter than him. So he sits with a brooding huff he doesn’t really mean and takes her proffered glass. It’s perhaps a little full, but if it’s what Professor Marzia recommends… 

“What’s the deal with this guy again?” Mark – Marzia’s boyfriend – asks as he pours himself a small glass before they leave for their date.

Sammy grins over his wine, preparing for his band’s gig – conveniently leaving the house free all night. 

“He’s the one responsible for my existence,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Ah, I think you’ll find _we’re_ responsible for your existence.” Marzia retorts haughtily, gesturing to Elio and herself, sparking grins around the room. 

“In all seriousness though,” Elio replies, “Oliver was the first person I ever fell in love with, and still the biggest love.”

“No one could ever compare after the golden boy.” Marzia sighs with a smile, leaning her head on Mark’s shoulder. 

“He _was_ shiny.” Sammy agrees with a nod and a sip.

“Stop making fun of this.” Elio whines as he rubs his temples, meaning it a little. The ribbing is loosening him up fractionally perhaps and he knows they mean well, but he feels like he needs to be focusing now or he’ll get caught up and breeze through the evening overly casually as some kind of easy social mask. He doesn’t want that, he wants to get to _know_ Oliver again.

Everyone had a small laugh after his last comment but they can see that Elio is genuinely caught up in his thoughts again as it peters out. Suddenly everyone drains their glasses and gathers up to leave, Sammy giving his _papa_ a “you’ll do great” and Mark leaving with a “good luck”. Marzia is the last to go, and parts after holding his face in her hands and giving him a gentle kiss to each of his cheeks.

“Just be yourself, Elio. It worked last time.” And she’s gone, turning off the lights at the main switch downstairs out of habit.

Elio ruminates as he sips his glass, suddenly alone at their small dining table in the low, warm light of their kitchen. Her words are more comforting than perhaps she knows. He should just be himself. If he’s nervous he should show it. He shouldn’t overcompensate for Oliver’s discomfort by acting comfortable. He should be honest, and speak his mind. 

After all, _it worked last time…_

Oliver is already sitting at the bar when Elio arrives. It warms his chest to see it; perhaps Oliver doesn’t want to play games of indifference either. Though they’re thousands of miles from the Italian coast and Billowy is tucked safely away in the bottom of Elio’s closet, he can practically hear Une Barque Sur l’Ocean as he approaches.

_He’s still with his wife, wait until you know the situation – he could have been unhappy about any number of things in his life._

“Oliver.”

As he turns around in the soft, golden light of the bar he’s even more gorgeous than the other day – somehow more gorgeous than twenty years ago, though his hair is certainly darker than it was. It suits him, as though he’s stopped pretending with his appearance in one way or another.

Oliver’s face lights up at the soft expression on Elio’s face. He doesn’t bother to try to hide his joy at seeing Elio look so open again, as his overthinking mind finally goes blank, relaxing in the face of all he has feared and desired. How were they ever shocked into distance?

“Elio,” he replies, standing up to embrace the younger man. 

They stand in the hug for perhaps longer than would be necessary between two platonic friends. But they were never truly that. It feels as though _this_ is their first meeting after twenty years, the disjointed coffee talk forgotten. The honesty of even the embrace strikes Oliver, and he senses that this evening is going to be very different to that last meeting.

Nonetheless he pulls back first, turning to the bar to order them some drinks. 

“So what do you favour these days?” he asks curiously, one elbow on the bar. 

“Hmm anything, really. We usually drink wine in the house, but I’d enjoy a martini about now.” Elio replies, raising an eyebrow as he references that night in Rome so long ago. 

“It’s been a long time,” Oliver grins, feeling like that 24-year-old (relative) kid again. “Sounds perfect.”

So he orders – insists on paying – and they bring their drinks over to a table in companionable silence amongst the din of the bar, wrapped up in the joy of things starting smoothly.

“I wouldn’t have picked a place like this for you.” Oliver comments, taking a sip and gesturing to the crowded bar. It’s all stained glass and spilled beer, the crowdedness giving them some privacy.

“Well you don’t live in New York for years and years without trading in some of your European refinement.”

“The refinement that had you throwing up all over that statue?” Oliver ribs.

“Hey, I was young and you fed me martinis! It can’t have been that bad, you kissed me afterwards, I remember that much.”

At first Oliver seems a little shaken out of his ease by the comment, but he quickly settles back in, reminding himself that this isn’t a conversation around his family or a colleague that’s taken an inappropriate turn. This is a person – _the_ person – who has known his mind and his body inside and out.

“Yes. I did.” He smiles around another sip, remembering. Elio returns his warm smile with a knowing one and takes a sip himself.

“I don’t know why I picked this place, it was just the first one that came to mind – I didn’t plan out my phone call very well.” He admits, feeling as though he and Oliver are safely on the same side now, rather than speaking to one another from behind a wall across the universe. 

“I come here sometimes with an old friend from university, Michel. We bonded over being the only two French speakers in our year, so we like to keep up the tradition of meeting up every now and then to talk about people who can’t understand us.”

“That’s going to get you in trouble one day.” Oliver laughs.

“Oh, it’s already gotten us in trouble.” Elio cackles.

“I feel like you’ve got a lot of stories that would send me to an early grave if I heard them, I don’t want to know.”

“Well, I’ve always had a mouth much bigger than my brain.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” Oliver says, suddenly tender. “ _‘Is there anything you don’t know?’_ ”

Elio doesn’t reply, simply looks into Oliver’s eyes gently, as though searching for something. Oliver looks away, feeling as though he’s spoken out of turn by speaking of the more intimate parts of their past – more dangerous and cherished than a wonderful but drunken kiss… but Elio immediately puts a hand over his and reassures him.

“It’s fine, I like talking about it.”

Oliver lets out a breath he’s been holding. 

“Yes, you must be at least okay with it – I was surprised that your son knew about his father’s, and I quote, ‘big romantic summer in the eighties’ with me.” Oliver laughs, relaxing. 

“Please, I’m not his ‘father’, that implies far too much authority. I’m his _papa_ at best.” Elio laughs. “But yes, Vienne and Sammy have only ever egged each other on in their curiosity since they learned the word 'why', and Marzia and I never saw a reason not to tell them. I never liked feeling like I was lying to them, even by omission.”

“We have taken very different approaches to raising children.” Oliver laughs, eyebrows raised.

“Well, it makes sense. You went about it the right way – married, good job, head on straight, structure. I’m still surprised we didn’t end up dropping them on their heads.” Elio’s amazement seems genuine as he drains his glass, offering to get them another round. 

Instead of replaying every word of the conversation or relaxing into a moment alone as he might at work drinks, Oliver uses the time Elio spends getting their drinks admiring his ensemble and perhaps more undeniably, the man underneath. There’s a flicker of jealousy and injustice in Oliver’s heart at the knowledge that Elio doesn’t work out at all, because adulthood has filled him out in all of the best ways. It’s all Oliver can do to keep his mind just _edging_ around the thought that there’s something beneath the back of those pants he could _grab onto_ now…

He lets out a frustrated groan and rubs a hand over his face before he can start to get hard in public.

_What are you, sixteen? Keep it in your fucking pants, Oliver, you haven’t even talked about it._

Elio is grinning at Oliver when he returns to their table with the drinks. Oliver has always loved him like this – eyes wet with drink and giggling.

“There were people speaking French at the bar, Michel and I would so have been caught out again,” he titters as he sits down and takes a sip.

“It’s a good thing I’m here instead then.” Oliver replies with a suggestive raising of his eyebrows, before remembering himself. Elio just laughs.

_“Ah, tu ne parles pas français alors, Oliver?”_

No, but he could understand that much.

“ _Non_ , you goose.”

“Wow, no one’s called me a goose in… well since whenever you last did it.”

“I feel special.” Oliver replies with a sip, keeping it light.

But Elio’s reply is suddenly earnest, as he holds his eyes.

“You should... You are.” 

Oliver feels like he’s riding emotional waves tonight as Elio takes a deep breath and leans forward. 

“Listen… I worry that I might have seemed like I thought of running into you lightly. So I wanted you to know that I don’t think of this lightly at all, I was just surprised and I needed a second to bring everything back to the surface. It’s amazing, to see you again Oliver. Truly. It means a lot to me.”

Oliver is lost for words for a moment, for having his fears so sincerely and straightforwardly assuaged. No games or social conventions, no reading people to deceive them. Just truth. He hides behind his drink for a moment, taking a sip before speaking.

“It... It means a lot to me too.” He looks up into Elio’s eyes as he speaks, embarrassed by the truth of the moment but refusing to look away. 

Elio must see the melancholy behind Oliver’s eyes as he speaks – he always could see through to his core, when they were like this.

“There are things you don’t talk about to anyone, aren’t there?" Elio says, his words unexpected and weighty.

Oliver just nods.

“You don’t have to tell me now, or ever, if you don’t want to, but… It’s just me, Oliver.” Oliver gives a small huff and looks to the side. Elio cannot possibly understand how his statement sounds to him.

“You’ll never be _just you_ to me, Elio. You’re different than anyone else I’ve met. I just.. I don’t want to screw things up, I want to be prepared for that kind of talk.”

“Prepared for what? Just relax and be yourself – how long since you’ve done that? You used to, with me…”

Maybe it’s the third drink or maybe it’s that it’s Elio, but Oliver finds himself giving and receiving more open truth in the next minute than he’s had in the twenty years prior. He’s scarcely thought it to _himself_ in such terms.

“I’ve just got so much more to hold onto and hold together, so I’m used to being the father providing structure, being the tenured professor acting appropriately, playing loving couple for teenagers who buy it less every day… That’s where I’m comfortable. Not impassioned – but comfortable. Useful. Most things are easy because there’s a role I’m supposed to fulfil, but with you, I don’t know how to define the role I’m supposed to play.”

_Playing loving couple?_

“Then don’t define it yet. You’re scared you won’t know how to act if you don’t have a role with me, but that sounds like a good thing,” he implores. “Life isn’t always about being useful. I don’t want you to put your actions and reactions through a filter, I just want to talk to _you_. Don’t you have people you can just talk to, and be bare, with? Surely you can talk to your family if no one else?”

“It’s not that kind of family.”

“Well what kind of family is it? I’m not going to judge you or whatever you think is going to happen if you just open up to someone. If you’re unhappy in your work life, your home life, your sex life… it’s just me. We’re on the same side.”

Oliver looks around the bar uncomfortably, as though searching for eavesdroppers ready to destroy his carefully constructed life if he lets out the complicated truth inside of him. 

Elio catches it immediately and says, abruptly, “Have you had dinner?” 

Oliver has plain confusion on his face as he replies.

“No, I didn’t really think to.”

“Why don’t we go back to my place and I’ll make us dinner? I forgot, too.”

“I don’t know if your family would—” 

Elio interrupts as though coaxing a spooked horse.

“They’re all out. Marzia and Mark are spending the night at his. Sammy’s band has a gig and they’ll be staying together at one of their bigger houses tonight. We don’t have to do anything but eat, and talk without the audience.”

Oliver looks conflicted, like he’s about to say no. 

“Oliver. I’m not going to jump your bones the second we’re alone if that’s the problem.”

“It’s not _you_ jumping _me_ that I’m worried about.” 

It bursts out of Oliver before he can stop it.

They’re silent for a moment as they both absorb what he just said. 

“Your wife…” Elio begins.

“It’s complicated, I can’t talk about it here.”

Elio nods and brushes his confusion aside – he’s got him for at least until after dinner, there’s time. 

They finish their drinks and begin the short walk to Elio’s house. Both silent, both thinking, neither sure what’s going to happen next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so many ideas for the conversation at Elio's house, but that might get long and this felt like a natural end point cliffhanger as I started editing. Thoughts on character/plot development are always appreciated - tell me what you like and don't like pls :') 
> 
> (gently ♥️)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote out a whole different way this was going to go but it just felt too easy. I felt like Oliver was getting past his reservations too quickly and he needed to see what would happen if he did the stupid thing. I think he needed to be confronted before he could commit fully. 
> 
> There's a few bits I'm a tad iffy about, but there are some I'm pretty happy with :)
> 
> Micol is partially inspired by the idea of a brunette Cate Blanchett saying ["Oh for god's sake shut up"](https://youtu.be/_6MRCCOw098?t=450) on Jimmy Fallon haha

Elio’s thoughts are consumed on the short walk home.

 _He’s worried about what_ he’s _going to do when we’re alone? It’s ‘complicated’ with his wife, okay I can work with that but… will he want me to? Does he need help getting over the hill or help to step down from the ledge? This whole thing will end tonight if we do something he regrets. If nothing else I can be the person he talks to about things he doesn’t talk about with anyone else. If nothing else I can be that person._

_That’s an intimate part of his life that I can still have… right?_

Oliver is torn between excitement at this chance to be open and crippling uncertainty that all he’s going to do is ruin this by talking about all his dull problems. Is it worth it?

_I really don’t want to see the interest fade from his eyes… I don’t know what I would do if that happened, now he’s back at the front of my mind. Where does that leave me? Elio is sweet and kind – he thinks he’s still interested in me but he’s still wonderful and I’ve become something else and he’s smart enough that he’s going to get bored and when he does I’ll be… Crippled. It will hurt too much._

Maybe it’s better to have some pain now to spare himself more later. He can’t be there for his kids, can’t focus on his work if he’s crushed. He needs to protect himself or no one will. Elio can’t protect him from himself in this.

His thoughts are a stormy sea.

They reach the door and Oliver hangs back in hesitation as Elio fiddles with the lock. Elio senses something is up as he opens the door and crosses the threshold alone. Oliver remains standing where he is.

“Come in.” Elio calls, uncertainty in his voice, feeling once more like he’s speaking to a spooked animal.

“I…” Oliver begins, looking down at his shoes to avoid the dawning disappointment in Elio’s eyes – the disappointment in him, for letting his fears win. Elio doesn’t know Oliver is just saving them from more hurt, he tells himself. This is better. It’ll be easier for Elio to move on if Oliver doesn’t explain.

“Don’t do that, Oliver.” Elio begs, voice low and pleading. “ _Please_ just come up and talk to me, it’s barely been an hour.”

“Elio…” 

Oliver’s tone tells Elio all he needs to know – there’s nothing he can say, Oliver has decided. 

“I can’t.”

“You can.” His voice hardens. “You can do anything you want, Oliver. No one is making you leave. You’re _choosing_ to leave.” 

His voice suddenly turns wobbly and upset at his next words.

“You’re _choosing_ to leave _again_. No one is going to martyr you for this.”

It surprises Oliver, to hear the emotion making Elio’s voice quiver. 

_But he’s seemed so… over it?_

…Oliver can’t be weak on this and give in. As much as he wants to. He has to be strong to save them the worse pain – or at least he’s telling himself that he’s being strong.

It hurts, so he must be doing the right thing. 

It’s exactly like before, he’s just choosing the swifter death for their still-doomed relationship, again. That’s what he tells himself.

“This is the right thing to do.” He insists, for himself as much as Elio.

“Fuck, I just want to _talk to you!_ What are you so _afraid_ of?” Elio yells, angry and exasperated through his misty eyes. 

Oliver just stares back, frozen. 

“God, you are _such a coward!_ ” Elio regrets his frustrated words immediately, and his whole demeanour slumps in defeat as he waits for Oliver to speak.

“Maybe.” Oliver replies, trying to keep his tone level. “But the boys are still in school and we haven’t told them we’re separating and anything extra could be the thing that makes them—"

Elio interrupts.

“Wait a second. You’re actually separated from your wife – not just thinking about it because you’re unhappy, you’re _actually doing it_ … and you’re _still_ this afraid? To _talk to me?_ ” Elio is pissed off. 

Oliver’s mouth opens and closes like a dying fish – he hadn’t meant to share that information. Elio’s desire to help momentarily disappears in the fog of how sick to death he is of Oliver’s fears after letting him in again. He turns his observance into a weapon in a moment of anger. 

“How far away from this country do you need to be, to even _sneak around_ with another guy in the dark? Do you hate yourself that much?”

He doesn’t wait for Oliver to reply.

“Fucking hell.” He says, shaking his head exasperatedly. He looks up and turns to the side, huffing out an incredulous laugh. 

“You know what? Call me when you’re ready to grow up and deal with how much it _terrifies_ you to be your own person and take control of your own fucking happiness. No one is stopping you, Oliver.” 

He slams the door and storms up the stairs, leaving Oliver standing in the cold, to hail a taxi and go back to his zombie marriage and his picket-fenced home.

Upstairs, Elio picks two of the cheaper wines from the wooden rack on the bench and sits down on the sofa. He downs half of one of them in one go and turns on the TV – a romance movie marathon. 

He laughs bitterly. Fucking perfect. Hollywood trash. 

_Oliver would be such a perfect lead in one of these – he’d look so pretty on the poster, and he’s good at acting now too, apparently. Practices every day._

As he moves onto the second bottle an hour or two later, his bitterness has melted into grief. 

_God, I thought I was over this... I’m an adult, I’ve had other relationships, I moved on. I was moved on before he came back and I fucking resurrected everything to do with him because I thought he needed me to._

_…But I moved on thinking he was_ happy. _I moved on because there was so much to_ do. _And if he had just stayed the fuck away I wouldn’t be feeling this right now._

But he doesn't want Oliver to stay away. He wants him to come back.

He cries to himself at the thought, because ultimately, he’s learned enough to know that it’s better that he lets himself feel this, and accepts it – lest he end up like Oliver is, apparently. He knows this is necessary but the treatment still hurts when the doctor orders it. 

He allows it all to hold him, to hurt him, tonight, in hopes that it will hurt him less tomorrow. 

_God_ , he’s hoped for better for Oliver. It’s crushing to see this… stunting, of a man as wonderful as Oliver always was. He left Elio so he could live freely and not hide from the world – and then he went and hid himself away anyway, cutting off blood supply until the truest parts of him grew smaller and smaller. 

Maybe that’s why this hurts so much. 

He cries for himself, he cries for Oliver’s delusional notion that he has to suffer to be doing the right thing, he cries at the love they’ve been needlessly denied for a second time, and he cries for how many years of peace-making have collapsed after seeing Oliver again but twice.

_He’s probably at home trying not to cry because he doesn’t want to talk about it. Or maybe he’s so good at lying to himself by now that he doesn’t even want to cry. Can I even affect him in that way anymore? He’s got to have told himself a million reasons why this was the right thing – fucking idiot has probably convinced himself that he’s saving me somehow – white knight bullshit that helps neither of us… Maybe it helps him feel better about his fudging. It seems he would rather die than speak._

_I don’t know how to help him, if he’s going to suffocate himself._

Elio’s father’s voice, from so many years ago, echoes in his ears. 

“ _What a waste._ ” He whispers to himself with a frown, as his tears slow to a stop. 

His face is puffy and red as he feels his well of emotions abruptly run dry. He can’t cry any more tonight. He finishes the dregs of the second bottle, and finally falls asleep in the small hours of the morning.

Oliver is silent on the ride home, barely saying hello to the driver. 

_I did the right thing, I did the right thing. It would only have hurt us both more to stretch it out. It would have hurt the kids and they would have freaked out and ended up… I don’t know doing drugs or something. Micol would have felt weird and betrayed and no one would have accepted us. Or Elio would get bored and wouldn’t have the heart to tell me and it would get too far in and we’d both be miserable and broken by the time he told me and we’d ruin each other looking for something that no longer exists – I’m too old to waste time like that. And the boys will need all my attention during the separation. I can’t be out with Elio all night like he’d want me to be. We probably wouldn’t work together physically anymore either, he’s been with other people and knows what he’s doing, I’ve only been with my wife for twenty years and not even her for one of them. I can only disappoint him from here. I’ve disappointed him enough already._

His thoughts are a storm… but he can’t get the look of disappointment on Elio’s face out of his head. The desperation to talk. The anger at his utter cowardice. 

_No. Not cowardice, you were strong, Oliver._

Yes, that’s right. He was being strong in leaving.

His mind runs through all of this over and over again, finding new ways for it to be his fault and ways for him to be doing the right thing in hurting them both, as he mechanically goes through the motions of opening the front door. Calling out hello. Changing into his pyjamas. Brushing his teeth. Getting into bed.

Micol pokes her head in, confused.

“You’re home early,” she comments.

“Mm.” He replies, not turning to face her, for fear she’ll question the blankness on his face.

“What happened, why so early?”

“He had to go.” Oliver lies with ease.

“Oh.” Micol accepts. “Did you have fun?”

“Mm, it was fine.”

“Just fine?” She replies, sounding concerned. When Oliver just shrugs she checks her watch. “It’s barely eight, why are you in bed?”

“I’m tired.” His tone brooks no argument.

“…Okay…” Micol sounds doubtful but she leaves him alone, closing the door to block out the hallway light. 

She’s not told him face to face, but she’s worried about her husband of twenty years. 

He thinks he’s got her fooled and maybe he’s got the rest of the world believing his act, but Micol sees how dispassionate and apathetic Oliver has been of late. He still lights up around the boys at times but she remembers what he used to be like, and even in comparison to how they’d settled down when they had children… he’s been a shadow of his full potential. Not depressed or anything so drastic as that, but… she misses his passion for things. 

She wants that for him again.

She worries how he’s going to do when they’re separated. 

_God I hope he can find the will to start something new…_

Elio wakes up on the couch, curled up on his side, with his son standing above him looking down quizzically.

“Wow, you look like shit, _papa_. Did you guys get munted?” He grins.

Elio groans at the early morning light in the room as he sits up stiffly.

“I’m assuming that’s Australian for getting very fucking drunk?” Elio snaps irritably, not in the mood. 

Sammy’s demeanour immediately shifts, picking up on his _papa_ ’s short fuse as he continues. 

“I don’t know what _he_ did, but I did.” He runs a rough hand through his now-dirty hair. “I’m still kinda drunk,” he admits. 

Elio lets out a harsh sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose as Marzia gets him a glass of water and two aspirin. 

“What happened? Did he not go?” She asks worriedly as she places the pill and the glass in front of Elio, sitting next to him, with Sammy perching on the sofa’s arm rest. They’re both worried – they’ll all have a drink with dinner, but Elio doesn’t get drunk like this, unless something truly upsetting has happened.

“He left.” Elio croaks, leaving the pills where they are – it feels like his throat is too tight to swallow anything just yet. “He _left_ again just as we were getting somewhere, like a _fucking coward_. So I told him that he was a fucking coward and that no one was stopping him from having what he wanted. And then I told him to call me when he was ready to be a big boy and slammed the door.” He grimaces at the memory. “Basically.” 

“And then I sat here and got really drunk about it.” He sighs. “It was pretty cathartic actually, I’m not really angry anymore. Just let down. And sad.” He rubs a hand over his face and speaks frustratedly. “You know he’s separating from his wife? They haven’t told their kids yet, but he’s not even _with_ someone and he _still_ finds reasons not to even try to be with me when he so clearly still feels something.”

They all sit there for a moment, processing. It’s Marzia who speaks first.

“Well… you could have worded it better from what you’ve said, but…” She turns to look at him intently, grabbing and holding his hands in her own. “It sounds like you were right, Elio. If he’s still not ready now, it’s up to him to make a choice about how he wants to live. It’s clichéd but – you can lead a horse to water. You can’t make him drink.”

Marzia holds Elio’s gaze for a few moments, making sure he’s heard what she’s said. He sighs again and nods. He stands, feeling strengthened by his family’s support, but still just… _wrong_. Marzia holds up the pills and the water for him.

“I know you’re right. I’m right. It’s out of my hands,” he begins, nodding.

He reaches for the glass and swallows the aspirin quickly, sending Marzia a grateful look. 

“I just don’t feel… done, with how hurt I am by this. Not even close. I spent all night thinking about it and the thing that hurts the most is that I spent twenty years being okay with it all because I thought he was happy, but he’s not happy. And for no reason. Everything I’ve felt about him has been wrong, and there’s this _thing_ sitting wrong in my chest after I let him back inside and he _won’t let me fix it._ ”

Everyone is just looking at Elio with sympathy as he vents. They wait for him to continue but he just slumps, tired, drunk, hungover and defeated.

“Well you did tell him to call you when he was ready.” Sammy offers, in a small voice. “Maybe he will. Sometimes things need to go wrong to be set right. Like breaking a bone that’s healed wrong. You used to tell me that.” 

His voice is hopeful as Marzia nods, and Elio does appreciate it, giving a sad twitch of his lips… But he’s suddenly tired to his marrow. 

“He might call.” Elio shrugs. “He might not. I don’t know. I can’t convince him of anything he doesn’t want to believe. I know he’s not thinking of it this way but he’s got all of the control and he’s just leaving me hanging until he’s taken his time deciding.” 

Elio closes his eyes, giving in to his feeling of hopelessness, helplessness, for the time being. “I just need to go back to sleep.” 

Sammy and Marzia nod sympathetically as he walks towards his bedroom.

“I’ll bring you something to eat when you wake up again.” Marzia assures him, with her brows drawn together, before he closes the door.

Elio calls his thanks and collapses onto his warm, comforting bed, drawing the thick duvet around him like a cocoon and burrowing in. He can hear Marzia and Sammy speaking but he’s too drained to make heads or tails of their concerned murmurs through the wall before he falls asleep.

Oliver tries to spend the week going about his life as he used to. He tries to put a stopper in the whole thing by just cutting off the choice and not even thinking about it. He tries really hard.

But he can’t even distract himself. Every time he tries to actually do something with his day his mind wanders to Elio. The look on his face, as he left, and the chance to smooth out that look passed. He looked so angry and disappointed, not tearfully understanding like last time… how can Oliver just leave it like that? Leave _them_ like that, forever?

_Because it’s selfish and you know it._

That’s right, he’s being kind. Sparing further disappointment by getting it over with now. He’s giving Elio a gift. That’s what he tells himself, forcing the argument in his head to resolve so he can take up his task again. 

But the second his mind lets go of the threads of the argument, releases the steel cage forcing his thoughts to bend, he’s right back thinking about that look on his face… 

_Doing the best thing often hurts, doing the best thing often hurts, doing the best thing…_

Elio’s week isn’t any better. He makes his work appointments and goes about his life acceptably but he’s obviously preoccupied with thoughts of Oliver. He's moody and depressed the whole week. 

He feels uprooted, frustrated and saddened that this is happening to him _again_. He wants to call his dad but he finds himself resuming old, angsty thought patterns he thought he’d outgrown. He knows it’s stupid but he doesn’t want to come to his father with problems he should be able to solve by himself by now – despite having taught his own son and daughter that such notions are ridiculous.

A part of him just doesn’t want to stop wallowing yet. He ultimately knows the truth but it would feel premature to be forced back to life so soon. His father would just say things in a way that put it all in perspective and ripped him out of his moodiness too early to feel it run its course.

Sammy tells him to call _grandpapa_ to see if he can help a week in, but he refuses, shaking his head silently. He doesn’t even look up from his book as he lazes on the couch – again. Sammy curls his lip.

“Why are you being like this?” He frowns. 

Elio shrugs, eyes darting up for a bare moment before continuing to read. He’s finally managed to forget himself in his book, and he doesn’t want to think any more. 

Sammy’s frown doesn’t lift. He stands up and yanks the book from Elio’s hands.

“Love makes you _stupid_ , _papa_ ,” he accuses. He’s looking at Elio like he’s unfamiliar, a stranger in his house. 

They’ve shared just about everything, Sammy has seen him heartbroken and upset but he’s always been reachable and willing to listen – why has he never seen his _papa_ like this before? What makes this so different? 

“Why are you being like this, dad?”

The confused, estranged look on his son’s face hits Elio like a physical blow. He realises he’s scared him, is scaring him with his behaviour. It scares _him_ a little bit, to feel so abruptly regressed. He realises that this is exactly like what he did after Oliver left the first time – ripped out of his moodiness by his children that time, too. 

It may be time to come back to earth about all of this, after his week of wallowing. He places his feet on the floor and clasps his hands in front of him looking at the ground with a pinched face. 

“I think maybe only he can hurt me like this, Sammy.” He turns to look to the side, thinking. 

Sammy’s face softens, and he places the book down on the coffee table, shut. 

“ _Call grandpapa_ ,” he implores. Elio nods resignedly.

Oliver is sitting on the edge of the bed, cycling through his thoughts once again. He’s weary, tired of the constant mental gymnastics required to justify his choice when his heart tells him it’s wrong. 

Micol comes over and sits with him, knocking her shoulder against his and pinning him with a look.

“What’s wrong, Oliver?”

He tries to feign confusion. 

“What do you mean?”

“Oh give it up. You don’t fool me. You’ve been all up in your head and moping ever since you went for those drinks. I was waiting for you to tell me about it in your own time but apparently you’re not going to.”

Micol has never stood for nonsense in conversation. She’ll accept that Oliver doesn’t share all of himself with her because hell, there are things about her that he doesn’t know, but she’ll not accept deflecting or lies when she’s explicitly asked for the truth.

“Hey, I am not _moping_.” Oliver insists, offended.

“Fine, you’re _brooding_ then.” She rolls her eyes. “Even Jacob and Matty have noticed.”

“…They have?”

Micol heaves a long-suffering sigh.

“You’re really not as good an actor as you think, around people who actually know you. Though this week I don’t even think someone would have to know you." 

Her eyes tell him that she won’t accept anything other than the truth. "What. Is wrong.”

…But how much can he tell her? Is tonight the night he tells her… everything? He’s so tired from his week-long mental war, he doesn’t have the energy to lie to her. But is that how these things happen? You just pick a night and tell them?

“Stop concocting your story. What happened at drinks? Did he try to kiss you or something?” Her frustrated tone says she thinks she’s joking to make him talk.

Oliver’s mind suddenly goes quiet.

“…Can I tell you something?” He asks in a small voice.

“Of course,” she replies, suddenly gentle. She draws her brows, sitting closer and taking one of his hands in hers. “Anything.”

He doesn’t look at her as he speaks, taking a deep breath.

_Here it goes, I guess…_

“Elio and I…” How does he word this? “…We weren’t just good friends.”

He looks up momentarily to study the veiled surprise in his wife’s eyes before looking back down and continuing.

“I had been with a few guys at university, when we were in off periods, but I’d never loved another man until that summer in Italy. We tried to hide how we felt from each other for the first few weeks but in the end…” He laughs a little, his voice growing warm. “ _God_ , he was so bold sometimes…”

The living affection clear in his voice stirs something in Micol’s chest – so rarely has even _she_ glimpsed this side of her husband. She remains silent and allows him to continue his confession.

“We were together.” He says simply. “We read together, we biked together, we told each other things we couldn’t tell anyone else… We slept together, and it was… perfect. Everything was perfect. We fit together so well we called each other by our own names and then… it was all over. Far too soon. Neither of us was ready to part but it was time for me to go home and I knew I had to leave him behind me. For both of our sakes. So I just cut off contact.”

Oliver’s tone makes it clear that it’s a wound that never healed, before becoming more factual, like he’s reciting a carefully rehearsed list of reasons for his choices.

“We could never have had a life together – not back then. He was so young, I didn’t want to tie him down. We could never have had children and he would have grown to resent me for it or I him... God, if my father ever found out..." Oliver nearly shudders at the thought. "I knew those things, so there was just no point dwelling on it, as much as I wanted to.” 

Micol tuts and gives him a doubtful look at that, but again holds her tongue so he’ll continue his honesty.

“When I got back here you wanted to try again and it was comforting to know that even if I had lost Elio I still had something. I still had someone who loved me. Someone I knew so well and someone that I loved back. Someone I could realistically have a good life with, have a family with. I just… shoved all the things that mattered to me about Italy to the back of my mind and buried myself in work and the wedding and starting a family. And then suddenly it’s been twenty years and I’ve never spoken about it to anyone until right now. But he’s still in my heart. I never stopped being in love with him.”

They’re silent for a moment before Micol speaks.

“That… explains a lot of things,” she says with a hint of shock or surprise – Oliver can’t tell which.

“Do you—” Oliver begins, uncertain now that the thrill of finally – _finally!_ – telling someone what he’s kept inside of him for so long is gone. “Are you angry?”

Micol takes a second to consider. 

“No, I’m not angry. I wish you’d told me sooner – twenty years is a long time to keep that in – but we both knew why we married and how we felt about each other when we did it. I’m not upset about that. Even if I would have been before, we’ve not been _together_ , together for over a year. I only wish you would have trusted me, to tell me.”

“There just didn’t seem to be much point rocking the boat, until he was back,” he shrugs.

Micol narrows her eyes at him.

“…For such a smart person you really lack emotional intelligence, Oliver,” she nudges his shoulder, taking the bite out of her words.

“So you’re not upset that I’m…” Oliver trails off, waiting for her to answer a question he’s not really asked. She doesn’t let him off that easy.

“That you’re what Oliver?” She raises an eyebrow. “Do you only like men?”

“ _No_.” He insists, seriously, his eyes desperately trying to communicate to her that their marriage wasn’t a lie. “I loved you and I was attracted to you before and after we got married. I’ve been attracted to women.”

“Okay.” Micol accepts. “You’re not straight, you’re not gay,” she says simply.

“And you’re not… bothered, by that?” He frowns, confused.

Micol scowls at him.

“I’m not homophobic, Oliver. You know better than to think that.”

“I know, I know…” Oliver moans, burying his face in his hands, realising how his question must have sounded. “It’s just harder when you’re asking someone about these things in relation to _yourself_. It’s hard when you’ve grown up with…” He trails off, not finishing his sentence.

Micol’s expression softens.

“When you’ve grown up with a father like yours,” she finishes for him. He nods miserably.

“It’s a miracle I ever did anything with guys at all honestly.” He muses, lifting his head from his hands. He seems ill at ease, uncomfortable. Micol knocks her shoulder against his again.

“Relax, Oliver. You did it. You told the truth and nothing bad happened.” Pride and reassurance are clear in her voice.

Oliver lets out a long, harsh breath and slumps his shoulders.

“Nothing bad happened.” He agrees, leaning down to rest his head against her shoulder. But she nudges him back up.

“So what happened last week?” She probes.

Oliver sighs again.

“We were out. It was going well, we’d had a couple of drinks. And then it started to get more personal. We were talking about things that made me nervous – important things he could see I’d been keeping to myself. He could see I was uncomfortable, because he can still read me like a book apparently, and said if I didn’t want to talk there we could go to his place to eat and talk in private – his daughter is in France and his son and Marzia were out.”

“…And?” Micol urges.

“And we were walking to his place and I just kept thinking about how he was probably expecting me to be like I used to be and how much it would hurt to see him realise that I’m…” 

“That you’re what?”

“Less.” He says with a shrug. “Duller, more boring. Not the cool foreign older guy come to visit in the summer, just an old professor with two kids and no friends, separating from his wife.”

Micol frowns, concerned.

“…Is that how you see yourself, Oliver?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He waves it off. “I ended it. It was only going to hurt more and get more difficult to end it later when he realised, and I didn’t want to rock the boat any more with the boys than we already will when we tell them...”

There’s a tensioned silence for a few moments before Oliver speaks again, his voice wobbling.

“But you should have seen the look in his eyes.” The tears begin as he finally lets the words that have been eating at him out into the air. “He looked so _disappointed_ , and _angry_ , that I was leaving before we even had a chance, _again_. He said I was a coward because no one was stopping me from having what I wanted and told me not to call until I was ready to– to, _‘deal with how terrified I am to take control of my own happiness’_.”

His whole posture crumples as he cries. Micol wraps her arms around him and rubs a soothing hand over his back. She’s only seen him truly cry when his parents died – he’d had as little contact with them as possible for years, but it hurt him once they'd died that he could never set it right with them. 

“He told you not to call?” She enquires.

“He said to call when I was ready, but he was so angry he might as well have said not to call.” Oliver cries.

“Even if he had said not to call, I’m sure it would have just been in the heat of the moment. I’m sure he was angry because he cared.” She pulls her husband up to make him look into her eyes as she speaks. “Do you understand? He was angry because he wanted to _try_ , and you wouldn’t let him.”

“But he wants to try with his _memory_ of me.” Oliver insists, miserably.

“You are such an idiot, Oliver Lachman,” she says seriously, holding his cheeks. “He’s not the sweet, younger Italian boy in the summer villa anymore either. He’s got two children as well… Why can’t you let yourself have this?”

Oliver stares into her eyes for a few moments, absorbing the weight of her words.

“I’m scared.” He finally admits, barely audible. “I can just keep all of the what ifs, if I don’t ruin it by trying.”

“Oh, Oliver.” Micol sighs, embracing him again. His tears eventually slow to a stop as she rubs his back. When he’s sitting there red eyed and sniffling she speaks, and her tone is gentle and understanding, but her words mean business.

“Call him. Or go see him. Give it a chance. It might not work out forever but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth pursuing. All of those what ifs that have kept him in your heart for so long mean _nothing_ , if you don’t take this chance. If you don’t try, then you _are_ being a coward… If you need my blessing you have it.” 

She stands and walks to the door, echoing Elio’s words when he left.

“Nothing is stopping you, Oliver.” 

Maybe ten minutes later there’s a knock at the door. He assumes it’s Micol, wanting to give him some warning before she enters, so he says to come in.

But it’s not Micol, it’s Matty. He looks confused at his father’s puffy red eyes, frowning.

“I was just gonna see if you wanted to watch a movie with us downstairs.” He says it like a question. He’s never seen his father like this.

“You okay dad?” He knows something is up.

Oliver sighs and stands, rubbing a hand over his face.

“I’m fine – I’d love to watch a movie.” He smiles and ruffles Matty’s unruly hair, thick and dark brown like his brilliant mother’s. They head downstairs to join the other two members of the family. Micol smiles at him from the couch and pats the space next to her. Jacob gives his father the same confused look his brother did upstairs.

“You good, dad?”

“Yeah.” He sighs, meaning it. “Just something I’ve realised I’ve got to do.” 

The boys give each other sceptical looks as Micol places a proud kiss to the side of Oliver’s head and turns on the TV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all liked it - let me know what you like and what you don't :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very tired and hungover as not only is NYE what it is, my birthday is New Years so two big parties at once whoop. Also I saw Little Women for my birthday and it was amazing even though I felt like death :D Go see it!
> 
> Had to post this though! I hope it doesn't seem rushed, I just needed to get my babies back together.

As Elio suspected, his father gives him excellent advice. He tells him that he did the right thing in expressing himself, that it’s better to air these things. He tells him to give Oliver another chance but be careful not to leave himself unprotected, at least at first. He tells Elio that he is hurting because _‘it’s the things that might have been, but never were that hurt the most’_ … 

Why does he have such a way with words? Elio’s tried to be as eloquent in his advice for his own children but he suspects he’s not had quite the same wise air.

Sami also says that he’s sorry Oliver is having troubles and to give him his number if he asks for it. Elio sighs and tells his father he’ll call again when he has more to say, promises to visit in the new year sometime, and tries to get back to his life while he waits for Oliver to make a call he might never make. In the end he only has to wait half a day.

Oliver makes the call a week to the day of their disastrous meeting, on Saturday afternoon.

It’s Marzia that picks it up.

“ _Oui?_ ”

“Hi, Marzia, it’s Oliver. Lachman.”

“ _Mon dieu, Oliver!_ ” She still says it Oh-lee-verr, and Oliver smiles a little at that. If she’s upset with him for what he’s done, she doesn’t show it. 

_Is Elio not upset anymore?_

“How are you, Oliver?” 

Her accent is still there but slightly Americanised around the edges.

“I’m well, Marzia. I uh—I’m sorry to cut to the chase so quickly but I need to speak to Elio, if he’s there.”

“Don’t worry about it Oliver, he’s right here.” And then she’s gone, her voice replaced by the sound of the phone being handed over.

“Hi, Oliver.” Elio’s voice sounds polite but guarded, so Oliver doesn’t mince words.

“Elio I’m ready.”

“You’re ready for what?” His tone says he’s not planning to make this easy.

“I’m ready to… to be my own person and take control of my own happiness. I want to try again.” He uses Elio’s own words to make it clear that he heard _exactly_ what he meant a week ago. That he’s thought about it, a lot.

Elio gives a long, thoughtful sigh.

“I want to believe you, Oliver. But how do I know you’re not just going to decide to leave again? I want to see what this can be as well, but I can’t let you in if you’re just going to bail again at the first roadblock.”

Oliver doesn’t hesitate.

“You know because I told Micol about us. She knows everything. I told her everything last night and she was very supportive. She told me to just call. I told the truth, and nothing bad happened,” he says, echoing his relieved words last night. “I’m not scared anymore.” 

There’s silence on the line while Elio thinks, and Oliver’s heart is in his throat every moment. 

“That’s big,” he finally says. “I’m glad you did it.” His tone is genuine; he’s truly happy for Oliver. “…But we can’t have this conversation on the phone.”

“No, I know.” Oliver interjects. “I was calling to see if we could just… pick up where we left off last week? It’s not a conversation to have in public and my kids still don’t know yet, so I thought maybe we could just… order some food and talk, like we were going to.”

“At my place?”

“Yes, at your place,” Oliver says, not masking his intentions or trying to pretend he’s not inviting himself over out of misplaced politeness. Elio is still real with him – he owes it to be real back.

“A talk, or a date?” 

Oliver takes a moment to consider. It’s odd to think of ‘dating’ Elio – they skipped straight to serious when they were together so it feels like a frivolous word for what they might do.

“Well, the talking is the important part obviously. But if you’ll have me… both.” He doesn’t keep the hope out of his voice.

“How about we’ll talk, and we’ll see what it becomes after.” Elio replies, setting Oliver’s stomach fluttering. “The house is going to be empty again tonight from about six?” He says it like a question, his tone more open than Oliver expects from his earlier words.

“Then I’ll be there at six thirty.” Oliver says, letting Elio hear the smile in his voice. 

With Micol supporting him he’s not afraid of how to tell the kids or whether things will go wrong. He’s not afraid of what’s going to happen anymore – they’ll deal with it. Whatever happens they’ll deal with it. At least for now, he’s only afraid he won’t get the chance to make something happen again with Elio. 

Even after they’ve said their goodbyes and hung up Oliver is still smiling. Matty gives him a funny look at he passes him replacing the phone in its holder on his way to the kitchen. 

“What are you smiling about?”

“Oh, I just made plans to see… a friend, tonight.” It hasn’t occurred to Oliver until just now that even if he and Elio did start ‘dating’, he’d need to tell them something to explain his frequent absences before he and Micol told them the truth.

“Same one as last time?” Matty asks, narrowing his eyes and raising an eyebrow.

“Same one.” Oliver confirms.

“I thought you didn’t have a good time? You came home early and you were all mopey until last night, and now you’re happy to be hanging again? What’s up?” 

Damn. The kid has always been observant. He’s definitely noticed that his parents aren’t particularly romantically affectionate anymore – he probably thinks Oliver made Elio up and he’s having an affair. He did think Elio Perlman was a weird name.

“I’ll uh… I’ll tell you what’s up later.” Oliver says, but he sees the doubt in his son’s eyes. “Look, I _will_ tell you, I promise.”

Oliver knows his words haven’t done anything but feed the theories swirling in Matty’s head, but there’s no point saying anything before he knows what it is he’s actually talking about.

He heads upstairs to get ready. 

Elio had been prepared to be much more protective of himself during that phone call – and don’t get him wrong, he’s not just going to accept everything thoughtlessly now – but it’s different now. The fact that Oliver has told his wife means that he can’t take it back. She not only knows he likes men, she knows about _Elio_ , specifically. 

Oliver truly overcame something real and scary to give them a chance. Elio smiles to himself at the thought as he hangs up. 

Marzia tilts her head.

“ _Ça s'est bien passé?_ ” Marzia asks, sounding optimistic.

“ _Oui c'était bien_.” Elio replies, with a reluctant smile. “He told his wife about him – about us. He said she took it fine. It sounds like she’s all for it.”

Marzia smiles, pleased for Elio but also for Oliver. 

“So.” Elio says, giving her a look. “Is there any chance you could stay at Mark’s tonight?” He gives her his brightest smile as she folds her arms.

“Yes, I heard that.” She reprimands playfully before coming over to give Elio a hug. “Of course I can _mon chéri_. I’m happy to be out if you need the house to yourselves.”

“You’re a saint.” Elio replies, lifting her off the floor for a moment. 

“Oh, _absolument_.” Marzia laughs as they part. “Besides I’ve been trying to make Mark take me to that Malaysian place for weeks. I’ll tell him a terribly romantic story about this whole thing _et voilà_. Excellent food.” 

“Not a total loss then.” Elio smiles. Marzia just nudges his shoulder towards his room. 

“Get changed lovebird, I’ll tell Sammy.”

It’s 6:30 on the dot and Oliver is standing outside Elio’s door. It’s the same situation, but Oliver doesn’t feel like the same man he was here last week. He reminds himself of Micol’s advice at the door before he left – _be yourself, be honest, let him take the lead. He’s older now too._

He’s scarcely taken a fortifying breath and knocked before Elio opens the door.

“Hi.” Oliver says, unable to keep the smile off his face.

“Hi.” Elio replies, his eyes soft, though he’s trying not to give in entirely immediately. They still need to talk. “Come in.” He says with a gesture. They ascend the stairs, out of the cool air and into the warmth of the golden light in the kitchen/living room.

“It’s cosy.” Oliver says at the top, just to say something.

Elio might’ve made a joke about how cosy is just real-estate-agent for small, but he doesn’t want to lighten the mood. This isn’t a light-hearted meeting. He hums in agreement and heads to the wine rack on the kitchen counter.

“Wine?” He asks, picking out a bottle. They can’t be drunk for this conversation obviously, but one glass isn’t going to send anything off the rails. It’s really just something to do with their hands while they talk, something to make a thoughtful silence go down easier.

Oliver nods his assent and Elio pours them a glass each, handing Oliver’s to him. He studies the older man as he takes a sip.

He seems more relaxed than he was last time Elio saw him. Maybe it’s the jeans and the soft-looking sweater in contrast with the button down and slacks from before, but Elio thinks he’s also just… less conflicted. He seems more open and less stuck in his head, like he’s not trying to filter anything before he says or does it.

 _Maybe he’s ready to commit himself to something or maybe he’s just more relaxed without an audience,_ Elio thinks. _Hard to tell._

“I haven’t thought very far ahead so I thought maybe we could just order pizza. It won’t be good Italian pizza, but it’s easy.”

“Pizza is good.” Oliver smiles, feeling younger than he has in years at the thought of sitting on the floor with Elio, eating cheap New York pizza. It’s so far from the sophistication of Mafalda’s cooking enjoyed alfresco in the Italian countryside, but it warms Oliver’s chest to imagine it. 

He excuses himself to the bathroom so Elio can order, saying he’ll just have whatever Elio wants. He stares at himself in the mirror after splashing some water in his face, hearing Elio’s voice on the phone outside. His eyes run over his now-darker hair, his thick beard, the crow’s feet and the frown lines on his forehead from years spent focusing at a desk. He definitely looks older, he thinks, but maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe it’s okay for it to suit him. Maybe it doesn’t have to mean anything except that time has passed. 

When he emerges Elio is standing nearby, their wine glasses on the floor by the couch. He comes close, takes Oliver’s hands, and pulls him over to sit on the rugs between their glasses. Oliver hasn’t allowed another man to be close, or physical with him in this way in twenty years. It feels like he’s been breathing through a tiny straw for years and now he can finally take a full breath without strategy.

“What are you thinking?” Elio asks. He lowers himself down to sit cross-legged in a way he never would have for a serious conversation before, having been so desperate to fight his status as the baby of the family at the time. Having two babies of your own will wipe that fear clean away, Oliver supposes.

“I’m thinking about how it feels to not guard myself from the person sitting in front of me, because I have nothing to hide from them,” he says with tenderness that surprises him. 

“How does it feel?” Elio asks, folding his fingers together and looking down at the floor. Oliver prepares himself to follow Elio’s more emotionally experienced lead.

“It feels…” Oliver pauses, searching for words to communicate what this chance means to him, to convince Elio he can put his faith in him. “It feels like I’ve been in handcuffs for twenty years and now I can stretch my arms as far as I want in any direction and the blood is rushing back.”

“Handcuffs, huh?” Elio considers. “Has your life been a prison then?” Oliver can’t quite put a word to Elio’s tone as he says that. 

“Not a prison,” Oliver replies, feeling strangely like he needs to defend his life. “Just… restricting, in some ways.”

“What ways?”

Oliver sighs. Elio takes a sip and studies him, not giving any ground. He needs Oliver to explain how things ended up this way.

“Well, having a family makes maintaining friendships more difficult, doubly so when you have a job like mine. Over time life just became… I don’t know. Regimented?” He guesses, but that doesn’t communicate what he wants to say. “Work, kids, few friends.”

“Lots of people have children and jobs and few friends. It doesn’t make them as cut off as you’ve been acting. Keep talking.” Elio finally looks up, pinning Oliver with his eyes.

“You… you wake up, and you exercise alone. You get your children to school, you go to work and sit at your desk alone or give lectures, you interact appropriately with other faculty members and students in a clear and defined way to keep your professional life professional. You go home, you help with dinner and homework, you catch up on things you have to do, and if you’re not out the second your head hits the pillow you spend the next several hours trying desperately to sleep through the anxiety of the list of things you need to manage going through your head. You’re _exhausted_ , from being an authority figure acting upon a set of clear rules at work and father figure speculating on what to do at home with no clue if it’s working, and yet you can’t sleep. You don’t get a chance to think about yourself or what you actually want, or anything not to do with keeping your carefully constructed life together. What you want doesn’t factor into it – it can only get in the way, so you have to push it down and shove it away or it could all come crashing down in one moment of honesty.”

Elio’s eyes shift from carefully neutral to openly mournful over Oliver’s speech. 

“That’s a lot,” is all that he says.

Oliver nods and takes a long sip from his glass.

“I mean it doesn’t always feel like that when you’re doing it – mostly I’m just getting from one task to the next and I’m not… bothered, by it, but I guess that’s just what it builds up to cumulatively.” Oliver shrugs. “But it’s not just those things. A big part of my fear was how the boys would react. I’m so worried about how they’re going to take the separation, and… I don’t know. They’re not homophobic, I wouldn’t raise them like that, but you never know what’s going to be the last straw in a divorce and immediately jumping into another relationship might make them suspicious that their father’s been cheating and especially if it’s with another man. I don’t want them thinking that I’m gay and I never loved their mother. It’s felt like if I start putting energy in elsewhere it’ll end in disaster.”

Elio hears his words and thinks before replying.

“But are you able to be fully there for them if you’re not trying to live your own life? How can you be an example of what love and living should look like to them like that?” Elio asks, not letting up despite his compassion for Oliver. 

“Why do you feel like everything is going to fall apart if you’re not constantly one hundred percent available to smother it?”

Oliver sighs, deeply.

“I never talked about it in Crema because it just felt so far away, but… My parents _hated_ each other, until the day they died. They hated each other and they fought and they hated their lives and they took it out on us, but they never, ever considered separating. Divorce was such a forbidden word. People would talk. So honestly half of why I’ve not been pushing to move forward with my life is that I’ve felt like my family life was a massive success by comparison. And that I need to keep it all together because it’s good and good things are scarce.”

“…If you never risk a good thing you’ll never have a great thing.” Elio says simply. Oliver sighs, nodding in acceptance of Elio’s words and remembering how many times he’s sat in awe of Elio’s understanding of people and the world to force himself to trust the sentiment.

“The other half of why I’ve stayed put is that it feels like I’ve left things too late. No one I ever knew growing up got divorced, and especially not after forty. If it was too late to start another family, it was too late to try for anything else – ‘you made your bed, so you’d better lie in it’.”

Elio has an elbow on the sofa now, leaning his head on his hand, studying Oliver’s face as he speaks. Oliver never spoke about this side of his life in Crema. Elio loved Oliver, and he knew his train of thought so well then, but he knew so very little of the facts of his actual life – then, and now. He considers for a bare moment before he speaks.

“I know this isn’t a delicate way to say this, but… fuck those people, Oliver.” Elio says, looking deep into his eyes. “They don’t have to live your life, you do.”

“I know, I know,” Oliver concedes, running a hand over his face. “I know that now, that’s why I’m here.”

“Have you ever talked about us?”

“Never.” Comes Oliver’s quick answer. “Until last night.”

“Why?” Elio can’t fathom keeping that in for twenty years, what that would do to him. He’s always been able to be honest with his friends, because if they’re not okay with who he is then he doesn’t want them in his life – but the kind of life Oliver leads requires that he associates with people who could destroy him if they didn’t like the way he is. Things are changing in the world, but he’s had to protect himself.

“At first I kept it to myself because it hurt too much to talk about. Then because I was afraid what my friends would think. Then Micol and I settled and I felt like I already had more than I could ask for and I couldn’t ruin it. Now because… I just don’t know anyone well enough to tell them.”

Elio thinks at first that perhaps he shouldn’t tell Oliver how that makes him feel, to spare him while he’s being so brave and raw, but he wants their honesty to continue on both sides so he speaks softly and compassionately.

“That’s really sad, Oliver.”

Oliver just nods.

“I suppose it is to say it all like that, but it’s just been the way things are. It hasn’t been all bad. I made those hard choices because I wanted things like my professorship and my children, and those things _have_ fulfilled me. I’m glad I’ve got them even if they don’t necessarily make me _happy_ , all the time. Watching my kids grow has been…” He sighs, raising his eyebrows in amazement. “The single most incredible joy of my life.”

“…But it can’t be all there is.” Elio says, finishing the thought.

“Maybe not, anymore.” Oliver agrees. “I guess I’ve kind of known that for a while, since we decided to separate. I’ve just been focused on other things, and— It hadn’t seemed worth it to bother trying again until I saw you again.”

“…You’ve got the whole second half of your life ahead of you, Oliver.” Elio says incredulously, frowning.

“I know. I know how it sounds to say it like that but I’ve been tired, and living it, it’s just been… easy. Easier not to hope or try.” He speaks his next words with more strength, confident in their ability to explain his feelings. 

“Not moving didn’t require any effort.”

Elio thinks about how close that sounds to the way Marzia used to describe the depression she experienced when she finished university. He doesn’t think Oliver has been truly depressed from what he’s said, but the thought crosses his mind. He could easily see it going there if Oliver ended up in an empty house without his wife or their sons most days of the week.

“Talk to me about the divorce.” 

Oliver just shrugs.

“I don’t really feel anything about it.” Elio raises a doubtful eyebrow. 

“I’m not reverting back to where I was last week, or lying to myself. I don’t feel anything about the end of my marriage except worry for how the kids will take it. Micol is fine, I’m fine. It was mutually, amicably decided. I did love her and she did love me and it was all perfectly satisfactory for years because neither of us expected roaring passion from a marriage…” 

Oliver has been speaking fairly dismissively, but now his tone becomes pensive. 

“Though I suppose I sometimes wonder whether the reason we never found that real connection and passion was because I kept the part of me that I shared with you locked away with my memories of us. I think a lot of why I kept it was because we never ended things, truly. We didn’t separate because we didn’t want to be together. The problem wasn’t that we couldn’t work together. So that potential was always out there. Perfect and unspoiled.” He looks mesmerised, staring into the middle distance and momentarily consumed by the comfort and the aching longing of that potential before he continues.

“I didn’t feel restricted or fall out of love with my wife because I needed to be with a man, it happened because a subdued but resolute part of me needed to be with you. And I wasn’t. And my heart didn’t understand why, even if my head insisted it could explain. And I’ll always wonder if I should have gotten off that train and been with you, and I’ll always wonder if I should never have gone to Italy so I could fully be with my wife.”

Elio is frowning, staring at the floorboards, lost in thought. Oliver looks over and, finally, he asks a question of Elio.

“What are you thinking?”

“I feel guilty. I feel happy. I feel selfish for being happy that I kept that part of you, that hurt you.”

“It didn’t _only_ hurt me—” Oliver begins but Elio isn’t done.

“I feel conflicted, and… _wrong_ , that I moved on with my life because I thought you were happy and you weren’t. I feel like a spoiled brat, because I was so horrible to you for being afraid when I never had to hide you or how much you meant to me from anyone. I feel bad for what I said last week even though I know you needed to hear it to get to be here now. I feel sad, because I didn’t keep you secret inside me, but I also went through my life accepting that nothing would ever be as good as what we had. I didn’t stop trying but I knew, and I know that some things could have been wonderful but never were because they could never understand what I felt with you or how important you would always be to me. I’ve not been unhappy, or unfulfilled. But it was all based on lies.”

Elio seems exhausted at the end of his speech, revived by Oliver’s soothing next works.

“That doesn’t matter now, Elio. I’m here now. All of that can be over if we want it to be.”

“It can just be that simple?” Elio says, sounding very young in that moment. Somehow they’ve switched positions and Oliver is reassuring Elio that nothing is stopping them. Oliver nods, holding his eyes and he begins to smile.

“Maybe we were supposed to hold out and not give all of us away, to get to the point where our lives and the world are ready for us to try again.” Elio says. “Kismet.” He can see in Oliver’s eyes that he doesn’t believe in fate or destiny, but that he’s soft at the idea of Elio believing in it. He can’t help but see Elio as his soulmate.

“Maybe.” Oliver nods. 

They’re on exactly the same page again, for the first time in twenty years.

Elio finds himself wrapped up once more in the romantic ideas that gripped him that summer. The idea of being so intimately connected to someone that you could call them by your own name. He’s not felt even the potential for that kind of perfect closeness before or since. There’s suddenly a charge to the air as they study one another’s faces in their radical freedom, landing on each other’s lips. It’s Oliver that shifts to move closer to Elio, leaning in. 

Elio sits where he is and waits for Oliver to kiss him, adoring the idea of being adored.

Oliver is warmed by the thought that he doesn’t need to find the energy to go out and find someone else and he doesn’t need to worry about whether things will be easy if he goes after what he wants, because what could be easier than being with Elio? It’s like dozing on a rainy day. It’s like humming to his favourite song in the car. He just needs to follow Elio’s lead into the battle of his life. 

The kiss is like breathing to them. Easy. Vital. Natural. They’re not the same people but nothing at all has changed.

They excite the very atoms in the air as the kiss deepens and they finally admit to one another, within and without words, that they have been it for each other despite their best efforts. That they have gone out into the world and sought other comforts, but always utterly failed to find a true replacement for what they lost when they parted. 

Their cards are all laid out and each has lost to the other, and yet they have also won. 

They both breathe a little faster as they part, and Elio’s heart is suddenly in his throat. They heave soft laughs giddily at one another, in wonder at this thing they feel they have suddenly regained. 

And then Elio’s face crumples and he begins to cry. Oliver’s eyes widen, wiping his tears.

“No no no, don’t cry.” He implores, drawing his eyebrows together in worry. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

His thoughts are spiralling but Elio is shaking his head, smoothing the anxiety he can see plain as day on Oliver’s face. His tears are already subsiding as the sudden wave of intense emotion washes away.

“No no, it’s nothing, I’m just overwhelmed. I’m happy I promise. It just became a lot really suddenly and I’m getting whiplash. I just need to explain for a second.” He takes a deep, steadying breath. “I just don’t think I remembered just how _much_ was missing until right now. I spent a year wallowing and trying to deal with all we had and how empty I felt when it went away, and I think I was just starting to get somewhere with it when we found out about the twins… And then how strongly I felt about us was just buried beneath feedings and diapers and then classes and life lessons and how proud I was of how Vienne and Sammy were turning out and then it was twenty years later and I’d talked about you so much it was hard to truly remember how extraordinary it was. I’ve not been living a half-life – I’ve been happy I promise…” he reassures Oliver, placing a hand on his bearded cheek. 

“…But I think that’s part of why I cried. Because how did I ever think I could be okay without this part of me being complete?”

He chokes up a little on the final words and in that moment they’re simultaneously seventeen- twenty-four _and_ thirty-seven-forty-four. They’re exactly the same people inhabiting their old bones. The intervening years are merely background noise; only the time spent waiting for midnight to come. 

Oliver can’t find the words to say what he feels so he just leans in to kiss Elio again, trusting their physicality to speak for him as it always did before. 

Just as their lips meet again and Elio begins melting into Oliver’s embrace, the doorbell rings. They reluctantly pull apart with a sigh. At that moment Oliver’s stomach growls and they both huff a tiny laugh together, the tension broken but the love and excitement remaining in every fibre of their beings.

“I should probably go get that.” Elio whispers.

“Probably.” Oliver agrees, but neither of them moves, enjoying their closeness. It’s only when Oliver’s stomach makes its ire known again that Elio smiles and stands up, taking their near-empty glasses over to the table. When he looks back at Oliver before descending the stairs the older man’s eyes whip up to his face, clearly caught looking at his ass. Elio grins, keeping his giddiness at Oliver’s open desire close to his chest as he continues to the door to pay.

It seems an eternity before he comes back up the stairs, by which time Oliver is studying the family’s DVD and VHS collection. 

“I got a pepperoni and a margherita.” Elio explains softly, placing the two boxes on the dining table and refilling their glasses. He comes to stand in front of Oliver and hands him his, looking up into his eyes and enjoying how Oliver is still so much taller than him. He pulls Oliver down by the back of his neck with his free hand and their lips meet again for a moment before he pulls back, the grin at the top of the stairs forgotten as he looks seriously into Oliver’s eyes.

“I need to know something before we eat and relax into how easy all of this is between us.” 

The weight is back in the air.

“It feels stupid to ask after what we just said and did, but I need you to say it. Are we…?” he trails off, waiting for Oliver to speak.

“I want to be with you however you’ll have me. I want to be with you all the time and learn about your life and get to know your family and for you to get to know mine. I want our lives to merge the way they weren’t able to before. That's what I want this to be.” 

Elio puts his glass down next to Oliver’s and places a hand on either side of Oliver’s waist, pulling him closer.

“All in?”

“All in.”

Of course they both know as they kiss that it won’t be so simple and there will be difficulties before those things are possible… but they’ve been given a taste of something they could barely move on from the first time. There will be no casual period, no experimenting ‘dating’, or playing games. Only picking up in their natural stride once more because they know no other way to be together, perhaps simply learning new habits. 

Oliver is inexpressibly excited to get to know this new Elio as he looks down at him, holding his face in his hands and admiring the joyful lines on his face, the few strands of grey beginning to show at his temples, the new freckles that didn’t used to be there. It’s like he’s slept through the last twenty years and suddenly there are twenty new books in his favourite series for him to read, over and over again until the pages are worn in and there are scribbled notes everywhere. He’ll get to know this Elio in all the minutia of his mind, body and soul, as he hadn’t gotten the chance to in Italy, if he’ll have him.

“Good.” Elio whispers, pressing his forehead into Oliver’s chest before turning to listen to his heartbeat. He sighs. “I’m having trouble processing that this is just… something that’s happening, so I think maybe we should just eat, or it’ll get cold before my brain catches up.”

“I won’t argue.” Oliver agrees, smiling down fondly. Elio smiles up blissfully to match before disappearing into one of the doors dotting the walls of the room. He emerges dragging a coffee table over to sit in front of the TV.

Oliver wants to know who chose the coffee table. It’s nice, low, wooden. Did Marzia choose it or Elio? It’s strange to think of Elio as having to choose things of his own, not just using things inherited at the villa. He wants any information about Elio and his choice of cutlery and coffee tables is suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. Which plates did Elio pick to eat off of once he left home? Which toothpaste does he use? Which shampoo, soap, mattress? Which paper towels? Who chose the wine rack?

Oliver smiles at his thoughts as he brings the pizzas over, excited to get his answers over the coming weeks and months and years. Elio brings the glasses, placing it all on the table before he motions for Oliver to sit down. Once he’s seated with his legs up on the couch upon request, Elio drags the table until it’s flush against the couch cushions, careful not to spill the wine.

Oliver smiles as Elio climbs over to join him on the couch, curling up under Oliver’s arm.

“Is this what you do when nobody else is home? Order pizza and sit with the table right up against the couch for easy access, watching tv and drinking wine?”

“Sometimes.” Elio smiles softly, and Oliver delights in this little snippet of information. There’s something youthful and sweet about the thought of it. He wants to know more of these little things about Elio, but it seems, against all odds, he has all the time in the world to find out, so he just grins back as Elio opens the boxes and passes him a slice.

It seems they’re over the hill of uncertainty, just like that, with what feels like barely a fleeting moment of blinding honesty. All of his fears were wrong – Elio is perhaps sad about the way Oliver is living his life currently, but he’s not bored or uninterested. This Elio has more experience, has children, understands. He’s older but he’s the same Elio entirely. The one who can pull back every defence Oliver has and soothe his soul, ignite his passion for things, tickle his forgotten giddy enthusiasm. 

He makes him _want_ things again.

They channel surf for a minute or two before settling on whatever movie has just begun – a moderately successful romantic comedy released a few years ago. Cheesy, but watchable. 

They eat and drink and give each other amused looks at the tacky tropes and mediocre acting, making comments that lead to small conversations that reveal a little more about their lives and new habits each time. The thought strikes Oliver that it’s all very domestic, but not in the way he’s used to. The casual intimacy is tender and sweet, not quotidian or casual. Borne not of constant presence continuing familiarity, but from truly knowing one another, understanding one another’s desires, and secrets, and recognising one another’s souls. 

His family domesticity is full of love, but it’s practical. It’s so different to the way it is with Elio… he knows that with time their domesticity would need to become some shade of practical as well, if they lived together. But it could never become the team planning partnership his dynamic with Micol is.

Sitting on the couch cuddling and eating pizza, is beautiful, and it’s significant, because it’s something they never got to do when they were together before. Oliver doesn’t think he’ll ever stop appreciating that. 

They wrap themselves around each other once they’re done with the food, and they trade a few gentle, teasing kisses but it doesn’t move any further. Not because the desire isn’t there, but because lying there, sated and slightly tipsy, the moment is perfect as it is. They don’t need to do anything more tonight. They’ll save it for later.

For once in Oliver’s life, it’s just absolutely perfect, again. As it used to be. 

He’s thinking about how it couldn’t be any more perfect as they’re curled up falling asleep, and then Elio speaks sleepily, from where his head is resting on Oliver’s chest.

“It’s like that thing about the river.”

“Hmm?” Oliver replies, half asleep.

“Some things stay the same by changing. We’re like that.”

“Mm.” Oliver agrees.

“I really like your beard.” Elio mumbles distractedly as he drifts off. Oliver’s tired chuckle rumbles through his chest, sending them both to the calmest sleep they’ve had in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, please let me know what you liked and what you want to see happen next and whatnot :')


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm nervous to post this one cos it felt kind of disjointed to write but I just needed to get it out and move on to the stuff I started writing this to get to :) I tried to write some sexy scenes upon suggestion but I didn't think I was good enough at it to include them ://
> 
> But yes, character fleshing out in this chapter so Oliver talks about his family life growing up. I've tried to portray it properly but I've never experienced what this Oliver grew up around  
> Warning: mention of alcoholism, abuse, and suicide in this chapter, all in the past

When Elio stirs, Oliver is already awake and playing with a lock of his hair, curling it around his finger. He’s stroking Elio’s back with his other hand, the younger man sprawled out on his chest. The couch shouldn’t be big enough for two but with one comfortably atop the other it’s more than enough.

“Morning.” Elio grins and looks up at Oliver, his voice hoarse with sleep.

“Good morning.” Oliver’s deep voice is warm with his matching smile. 

“I can’t believe you’re still here.”

“Where would I go?”

“Away.” Elio doesn’t elaborate. “What time is it?”

Oliver lifts his wrist and checks his watch.

“A little past eight.”

Elio lets out a long sigh and wraps his arms around Oliver, closing his eyes and pressing his face back into his chest. 

“Why am I awake at eight on a Sunday morning?”

Oliver huffs a small, affectionate laugh.

“Eight o’clock is _not_ early, Elio.”

“Mm, you’re allowed to be wrong.” Elio mumbles sleepily. Oliver thinks it’s adorable that Elio hasn’t developed an older person’s tendency to rise earlier but nonetheless he does need to get up himself.

“Come on,” he says gently, shaking Elio’s shoulder and sliding out from under him, moving the coffee table so he can stand. Elio scoots back so he’s sitting with his back against the arm rest with his eyes still half closed.

“Still not a morning person then?” Oliver ribs lightly as Elio rubs his eyes.

“Ugh, not even close,” comes his groaned reply.

Oliver smiles to himself at the information as he studies Elio stretching out his muscles, tucking the sweet visual safely away to remember later.

“I’m hungry.” Elio finally volunteers. “Breakfast?”

“Breakfast.” Oliver agrees, lending a hand to pull Elio up to stand. 

They stand before each other for a moment, looking at one another with giant grins as though they can’t believe their luck to be standing there. Elio reaches out and places two hands on Oliver’s waist, pulling him in closer. 

“Eggs and toast?”

“Absolutely.”

“ _Absolument_.” Elio murmurs as Oliver presses his lips to his, heedless of unbrushed teeth. As Elio licks into Oliver’s mouth there’s the promise of more, but he really is hungry. When they pull back Elio smiles softly at the sight of Oliver standing with his eyes still closed, as though trying to hold onto the moment for just a second longer.

Oliver opens his eyes and murmurs, "I can't believe that's something I can just do now."

“Come on,” Elio says tenderly in response, pulling Oliver into the kitchen by his fingertips. As he prepares the food they’re constantly touching; shoulder to shoulder by the fridge, chest to back pressing kisses into the neck in front of the stove, fingers entwined whenever possible. They can’t stop touching each other to be sure it’s all still real. The physical closeness is addictive. 

They don’t even sit at the table to eat, they just fork the eggs straight out of the pan between bites of toast. Oliver eventually jokes about how Elio devolves into an uncivilised savage the moment Mafalda isn’t around to nag him and set the table, and gets an amused poke in the ribs in response. It quickly dissolves into a wrestling tickle fight exactly like what they used to do in the hotel room in Rome. 

They’re giggling like children and still play-wrestling when Sammy opens the door and calls amusedly up the stairs.

“Should I give you guys a moment before I come up?”

Elio is laughing breathlessly as they separate when he answers.

“No, no, we’re fully clothed, I promise.”

“You’d better be,” he calls, and then says in a very serious voice to the bandmates he’s parting from, “ _I’m going in_.” Probably with the appropriate salute.

Sammy stops only momentarily on his way to his room, carrying his guitar case, his amplifier, and a few guitar leads looped around his shoulder. He gives them a smug look and then speaks, clearly trying to keep the grin off his face. 

“Went well?”

Elio just turns to fork out some more egg out of the pan, also hiding his joyful expression beneath nonchalantly raised eyebrows.

“Yep.”

Sammy just smirks and calls out before closing his door with his foot.

“You’re welcome! This is why you should always listen to me, _papa!_ ”

Elio mutters “Yeah, yeah,” and turns to face Oliver.

“I should actually get going.” Oliver says. “I’m supposed to spend the day at the park with Micol and the boys – Micol said to be home by nine thirty at the latest if I could help it.”

“That’s okay.” Elio replies, moving over to enfold himself in Oliver’s arms again. “I get so clingy with you though,” he murmurs.

“I’m glad you do.” Oliver replies. “Being close to you is my favourite thing in the world, I think.”

“Mm, is it? Well when can you be close to me again, in that case?”

Oliver considers.

“I’ll have to talk to Micol about how it’s going to work before the boys know, but I’ll call you tonight?”

“That sounds good.” Elio sighs, breathing in Oliver’s scent. It’s like everything with them now – changed with time as is only natural, but somehow still fundamentally the same.

Neither of them makes a move to get Oliver out the door. He sighs longingly.

“I wish I could stay all day and ask you everything I want to know for hours. But I really do have to go.”

“I know you do,” Elio murmurs. “But you’ll get to stay longer and hang out with me and Marzia and Sammy and Vienne and our friends lots of times later. I can wait for today.”

“I will.” Oliver whispers, savouring the thought of that life and breathing in the scent of Elio’s hair to remember on the taxi ride home. 

He’s intoxicated by that scent and the idea of his life being brightened by Elio, and the people he’s allowed into his life, that they can share now. He’ll follow Elio’s lead on all of this, he knows, because at least for now he’s proven himself inept at steering the course of his life correctly. His instincts are all off but they can be set right. When he met Elio, Oliver knew so much more than him about so many aspects of life. He’s more than happy to relinquish his role in their dynamic and allow Elio to teach him how to live, as he taught him about the Piave monument just before that critical moment of confession so long ago.

If only Elio will show him how to walk in his life, he’s sure that soon they’ll be able to run together.

He’s grinning to himself looking out the window the whole way home. Even the grey of the passing buildings seems brighter – grey can be beautiful if you give it a chance, if you teach your eyes a new way to see it. 

He’s not had such lofty, starry-eyed thoughts in a long time but how can he be otherwise, when the course of his life has been so wholly corrected in one night? Everything feels streamlined as he arrives at his house. 

He takes a moment to compose himself as he pays the driver, before opening the door and returning to a world that seemed so much more complicated just last week, last night even. With the missing cog of Elio returned to the machine it seems like it will all work much better soon.

The door is open and Micol is coming out holding a picnic basket to load into the car when he steps out of the cab. Her expression is fairly neutral, waiting to see how she should react – though she’s also fairly certain it went well, or Oliver would have returned in crisis the night before.

“How was it?” She asks softly as he approaches, not wanting the boys to hear.

Oliver can’t contain his blinding smile.

“It was so perfect, Micol. I… He—” He takes a deep breath. “We’re going to try again, he still wants me. Everything still fits together the same, except maybe better, I think. I’m so excited to just… keep being around him.” His voice is giddy and she’s beaming in her joy for him, placing the basket in the trunk and throwing her arms around him.

“Oh I’m so happy for you Oliver!” And she means it, it’s so clear to him in her voice. She lets go and pulls him down to give him a kiss on the forehead. “I told you to be yourself and it would be fine. I’m glad it worked.”

“Thank you,” is all Oliver can say, too happy to think properly. “Thank you so much.”

Micol just waves it off. “Buy me a bottle of champagne sometime,” she grins and shoos him into the house to shower and get changed.

She can’t keep the proud smile off her face as she watches him go, his walk energetic and giddy like she’s not seen from him since when Matty’s first word was dada. 

_Early days obviously, but if he’s going to be pursuing this maybe I should start sending signals to Michael from the English department myself…_

Oliver is walking out the door, freshly showered and having calmed himself down so as not to arouse suspicion with Jacob and Matty, when Matty appears in front of him to express his aroused suspicions.

_Too late._

“Why didn’t you come home last night?”

“We uh,” Oliver begins – very convincingly. “We uh, had a few too many and decided to stay at his place since it was closer.” 

Not the worst excuse, definitely not the best.

“You don’t _look_ hungover.”

Oliver is silent for a moment, furrowing his brow.

“…How would you even know what I look like when I’m hungover?”

“I know what _people_ look like when they’re hungover.” Matty counters, crossing his arms and looking up at his father defiantly with narrowed eyes. “Should I just stop asking about this until you’re ready to tell me the truth?”

Oliver isn’t going to argue with that if Matty will accept it. He can’t convince his son’s curious eyes not to see what’s happening right in front of him.

“Probably,” he says mock-acerbically with a shrug. 

Matty is so probing and observant, is unafraid of and unaffected by others’ opinions most of the time, so he asks a lot of questions Oliver doesn’t want to answer in general. His father’s side-stepping answers – or lack of answers – have often led to a quiet friction between them. 

He seems happy with Oliver’s honesty now though, such as it is. He hums with surprised raised eyebrows, and uncrosses his arms before heading to the car. Oliver looks at him go and thinks about how his son simultaneously demands to be spoken to as an adult, and unabashedly likes the sometimes very adolescent things he likes. There’s a wisdom to his defiant lack of fear of judgement that reminds Oliver so much of Elio – though maybe that’s more a trait of now-Elio than seventeen-year-old Elio, who was obviously more affected by some opinions than others.

_‘Are you really that afraid of what I think?’_

Perhaps now that Oliver will soon have nothing to hide from his son they can bond better, can understand each other more. He thinks – hopes – it’s possible that his son will… _like_ him, more, once he tells the truth. He knows Matty loves him as most sons love their fathers, but he’s sometimes not sure how much he _likes_ him, through his guardedness and authority in the face of Matty’s questions. His son has only ever asked to be spoken to honestly as someone as intelligent as he is, and Oliver hasn’t always been able to give that to him. 

He imagines that sometimes his son struggles to feel that he knows his father. 

It wouldn’t be a problem if Matty didn’t want to know _everything_. But Oliver knew his father too well in many ways – drunks are often very open with their worst traits – and at least he’s not been that to his son.

He can’t help but feel Elio and Matty will get on famously when they meet, as he heads to the car with his thoughts. Jacob however… they’ll have to wait and see.

Elio and Oliver meet up several times a week over the next month or so – quick lunch meetups, romantic dinners, walks in the park, more movie nights on the couch. 

Oliver’s favourite is when he tugs Elio around his family's apartment one Friday night asking all the questions he’s wanted to about the family’s things. Elio wears Billowy that night, smiling brightly at Oliver’s nostalgic shock when he answers the door – it’s still a little too big on him but he does fill it out a little better than he used to. 

Oliver follows him up the stairs and Oliver asks every question he can think of about the objects in Elio’s house and Elio answers with an amused smile. He doesn’t try to hide how much he enjoys being asked, enjoys being the centre of Oliver’s attention, enjoys the idea of Oliver being so interested in the most mundane facts of his life. 

“When was this?” He asks, holding up two framed photographs, of Elio holding a little Vienne, and Marzia kneeling next to a little Sammy, all rugged up and standing in the snow.

“That’s from when we took them to Berlin when they were maybe four.”

Oliver smiles at the thought of Elio and Marzia helping their little kids trudge through the snow, making sure they keep their mittens on, wiping cold runny noses… He’s a little sad that he’ll never see that side of Elio and it brings him down for a moment, until a little voice whispers that one day their children will probably have children of their own, and he’ll get to see it then. He’s warm inside again.

“What about this lamp?” He asks with a grin. “Who chose this lamp?”

“I did,” Elio laughs as Oliver wraps his arms easily around his waist, pulling him in for a kiss. “I saw it at a flea market and I wouldn’t budge until we had it – eighty dollars we probably shouldn’t have spent but I wanted it.” 

Oliver just smiles indulgently down at him and pulls him along by the hand as he giggles. 

“And what about the wine rack, who chose that?”

“My parents gave us that when they came to visit and saw we were just storing bottles on the bench. That’s how we got the rugs, too.” Elio points to where they sat on that first night with the pizza, Oliver pressing his lips to his cheek, his jaw, his neck. “They didn’t want us not to have any nice things while we were starting out.”

“Spoiled.” Oliver murmurs, his eyes lowering heatedly as he noses the hair at the base of Elio’s neck. “So spoiled.”

Elio leans his head back, arching his spine in response to the sensation as he replies.

“Always.” He says, his tone becoming breathy to match before he gets a mischievous look in his eye and pulls back. “Do you know who picked this shirt?” He asks, looking up at Oliver, playing coy as he fingers the collar of Billowy.

“Mm no, who gave you that shirt?” Oliver plays along, following Elio as he walks backwards, pulling the older man by the hands into the bedroom.

“Oh, just some guy,” he says dismissively, turning to face forwards, keeping his fingers entwined with Oliver’s as he pulls him along.

“Who’s this guy?” Oliver growls possessively, enjoying the game. He pushes the door shut with his foot once they’re inside.

“I think his name was Oliver something.” Elio shrugs nonchalantly, before looking up to Oliver coquettishly. “But sometimes it was Elio, if I said it was.”

“Oliver.” The older man responds hungrily before claiming Elio’s mouth, but Elio quickly takes control of the kiss and turns them around, pushing Oliver down onto the bed for some rough – though still adoring - lovemaking. Oliver’s not seen this more dominant side of Elio before, but he likes it. He likes it a lot.

It becomes a theme in their sex life – it’s very apparent that Elio has continued his sexual escapades in one form or another even through the years of raising his children, because he certainly no longer needs to take Oliver’s lead. Oliver is more than happy to follow now, having slept with no one other than his wife since Elio. The regular sex is doing wonders for his mood. Even Micol says he’s glowing with a good-natured smirk.

Oliver enjoys that they get chances to be loud when the house is empty as well, as he’s not often had that option at home – they’ve learned to check that everyone has in fact left before taking the liberty to throw caution to the wind, however. Oliver will never forget the sound of a knock at their door a few minutes into the afterglow of a particularly loud, vulgar session, and then Sammy poking his head in with his eyes scrunched tightly shut and a comically pinched expression.

“So you guys didn’t know I was home, right? Please tell me you didn’t know I was home, because what I’ve just heard cannot be unheard. I know terrible things now that I never needed to know about you two.”

Elio’s eyes bugged out of his face at first, but then he laughed and threw a pillow at the door, saying sorry but also to ‘get the fuck out and just put on some loud music next time’. Oliver hid under the sheets, his face burning.

“You guys are freaks.” Sammy couldn’t keep the laughter out of his voice as he shut the door, so Oliver figured he probably wasn’t too traumatised, but he still shudders at the memory. 

Sometimes they’ll lie down in the sunny patch of Elio’s apartment and one will read to the other – Oliver usually insists it’s Elio because he loves seeing him in his little thin-framed reading glasses. Elio just huffs an amused sigh and indulges Oliver, because truly he enjoys how much Oliver enjoys the sight of him like that. He adores being desired, especially in the little things.

They have little family dinners, with Elio and Oliver teaching Sammy how to make dishes Mafalda would be proud of before sitting down to catch up with each other and Vienne through her emails with everyone, and talk about everything and nothing. Oliver gets on well with Marzia, Mark, and Sammy, though mostly he enjoys watching the way everyone else interacts with each other. Sometimes Oliver will just start doing the dishes afterwards out of habit and Elio can’t contain how arousing he finds it. 

“You’re just turned on by the thought of not having to do any work,” Oliver laughs as Elio comes up behind him, placing his hands on his waist and nuzzling his neck.

“Maybe a little,” Elio grins. “I just like seeing you doing normal things we never got to do. I like seeing how you look in my house doing things guests don’t do.” 

Oliver turns around, his eyes warmly affectionate as he looks down at Elio.

“I feel exactly the same way, about watching bad movies on TV and eating cheap pizza.”

Elio leans in to embrace Oliver but it very quickly heads in a more interesting direction as his hands travel south. 

“You really are turned on by me doing chores, aren’t you?” Oliver laughs, surprised.

“I really am.” Elio agrees, grinning wickedly as he pulls Oliver to the bedroom to the sound of Marzia and Mark laughing at them from across the room.

Sometimes when they’re lying in their afterglow they cuddle up and make a game of inventing increasingly ridiculous excuses for Oliver to give when he gets home. 

_I was accosted by a polar bear. I got pulled up by a garbage truck and had to fight a giant rat to get out. I was abducted by a mariachi band and forced to learn to sing fluently in Spanish before they let me go._

It usually ends with both of them bent over tittering but today Oliver sighs and explains to Elio that Matty really does know something is up and he’s not going to just accept that Oliver will eventually tell him for much longer. 

“So how do you want to go about it?” Elio asks, abruptly as serious as Oliver.

“I’ll talk to Micol about it but I assume she’ll want to meet you, then we’ll tell the boys, then… they’ll meet you. I’m pretty sure Matty will take it all in his stride and you two will be friends easily, but Jacob… I’m not sure how he’ll take it. ”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know, he just— He tries to be… conventional. He tries to fit in so much more than Matty does. He’s smart but he doesn’t like to show it to his friends. They can be so… meat-headed, sometimes. I worry that he’ll have no one he feels comfortable talking to about it. I worry that if he does tell his friends they’ll influence how he sees it all. I worry sometimes that he’s ashamed of having Matty as his brother because of them. He loved playing big brother when they were little, but they developed such different interests in middle school and high school that they’ve drifted, and when they fight now they don’t make up five minutes later like they used to. I think Jacob is embarrassed by Matty at school.”

“Why do you think that?” 

“Like I said, Jacob’s got some friends I don’t love him being around. And I know he goes out of his way to get to school separately from Matty, and avoids associating with him during the day. Matty’s smart enough that he’s definitely noticed, and for now it doesn’t seem to bother him because he doesn’t really value Jacob’s opinion in this area, but kids can be so cruel…”

Elio smooths Oliver’s furrowed brow with a gentle caress, but the frown returns as he speaks.

“You raised Jacob right, Oliver – he’ll pass through the phase and recognise which friends are good for him and realise that he values his brother more than the bunch of pubescent assholes who don’t accept him.”

Oliver sits up a little, shoulders tense.

“Well I don’t _know_ if I raised him right. I'm still in the midst of raising him and my dad certainly wasn’t an example to go off of. Yours was but lessons from raising a child in the Italian countryside feel kind of irrelevant in New York. I’m sure Jacob will grow out of it eventually but I don’t know that, and you know I can’t help but feel like if I don’t hold it all together tightly my family will just fall apart. I don’t want them to not talk to each other like it is with me and my siblings.”

Elio comes up to join him, sitting with his back against the wall.

“You’ve never told me about your siblings,” he says quietly, looking up with a face that says he’s here to listen if Oliver wants to talk, but that it’s fine if he doesn’t as well. 

“Might as well just tell the whole story now,” Oliver sighs. 

“I was the youngest of four – youngest by eight years, so by the time I was ten they’d all gotten the hell out of there. Brad was a lot like my dad, but he left when I was pretty young which I was happy about. I just remember he was mean; he liked that he could pick on me easily and he always used to tell me I was an accident when I annoyed him. Looking at the timeline he was probably right but he was still an asshole to say it. I don't know what happened to him after he left home really, but he wasn't at my parents' funeral.

“Don was just… quiet. He was really affected by the environment my parents and Brad created, and he shrank to be a smaller target. But that just made my dad angrier when he got angry, that his son wasn’t ‘being a man’ – and mom wasn’t any better about it. I didn’t really talk to him because I didn’t know how, and he didn't seem to want to talk. I didn’t really know who he was. I’m not sure anyone did. He shot himself when I was about twelve.”

Elio’s eyes widen, shocked by how easily the words just fall out of Oliver’s mouth. His tone is regretful but he doesn’t seem to be deeply affected by something so awful.

“Oh my god,” Elio breathes. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Oliver nods. “Like I said, I didn’t really know him very well.”

Elio furrows his brow. 

“It’s still _horrible_ though.” Elio’s never known anyone who committed suicide. Oliver looks down at him sadly and pulls him in. He kisses his temple and hugs him to his side as he continues. 

“It was horrible,” he agrees simply. “It is. But it was a long time ago and there was nothing I could have done. I was upset at the funeral and for a long time afterwards obviously, but really it just made me angry. My father kept calling him a coward afterwards and I couldn’t tell if it was because he believed it or if he just needed to find a way for it not to be his fault. I think it was a bit of both. It was probably what lit the fire under me to succeed and get out from under them more than anything.

“Jennifer was a lot like me in that way. She left to go to a good college, to become a doctor and build a life. I could tell she felt bad leaving me there but she couldn’t just stay there. She would come home on holidays and try to be there for me but she wasn’t really the motherly type and I don’t think any of my siblings really felt like I was one of them, even though Jennifer probably wanted to feel that connection. I was too much younger than them, I came too late. We send emails back and forth a few times a year now but I think we both just wanted to move on with our lives as best we could, so we didn’t talk much for years. We didn’t have anything to talk about that didn’t hurt.”

Elio is looking up at Oliver with glistening eyes as he finishes.

“I can’t believe I’ve never known any of this about you,” he says, dismayed and slightly dazed. “I figured you probably didn’t have the best family in the world, but…” he trails off, wrapping his arms around Oliver and squeezing. Oliver grabs one of Elio’s arms and squeezes back. 

“I think a lot of who I am – or at least who I have been – came from having to act around my dad. I couldn’t make him angry but I couldn’t just submit to make him happy. I had to get good at reading people and figuring out who they wanted me to be.”

“Did he ever…” Elio trails off again, not wanting to finish his question. But Oliver just surges forward.

“Hit us?” He asks casually. “Sometimes. I mean, he never hit my _mom_ , or did anything to us that would make people talk or send us to the hospital - by all appearances we were a fine, upstanding family… I don’t know, he didn’t get off on being powerful or anything, he was just… angry at the world. He was a traumatised veteran and a functioning alcoholic and he didn’t know who to take it out on except us. It’s no excuse but that’s just how it was.”

Elio is looking at Oliver like he’s crazy.

“How are you so calm talking about this?” He sounds like he might cry. “You know none of that is remotely normal, right?”

“I know,” Oliver nods, rubbing Elio’s back soothingly, understanding how much worse it must all sound to someone like Elio, who was raised in love and in beautiful places, and who gave those same things to his own children when it was his turn, with his parents’ help. “But I’ve come to terms with it. It’s shaped me in a lot of ways, but… I didn’t want to give them the power of upsetting me. Other than when they died, I’ve mostly been able to move past it and try to forget.”

“What happened when they died?” Elio lays his head on Oliver’s chest and listens to his heartbeat, reminding himself that all of this is horrible, yes, but Oliver survived it. He’s here and he’s okay and Elio is here to love him now and Oliver is going to let him.

“It was about five years ago. He was driving drunk. Wrapped them around a tree – no one else was hurt, thankfully.” Oliver is, again, just describing events, until he gets to the next part. Finally his voice chokes up a bit as he frowns, the pain still fresh. 

“I was so _angry_ that he’d done it, but I was also so sad. Despite having been determined never to speak to them again until they died, I was just… _distraught_ , that they had actually done it and that I would never get a chance to make it right with them. I wasn’t holding my breath or even thinking about them – the boys never met them and I’m glad they didn’t - but I think a part of me always hoped one day my dad would dry out and finally _say fucking sorry_.”

He’s not tearful at the end like Elio thought he might become, he’s just quietly, untreatably angry. It’s a slow, burning lake of magma inside him that can never be cooled, though it will probably never erupt again. A wound that will never heal though the bleeding has stopped.

Elio is at a loss for what to say in the face of all of this new information. They just lie there for a few moments before Elio takes Oliver’s hands and cranes his neck, looking into his hooded eyes. His face is full of coaxing sympathy as he speaks.

“Elio,” is all that he says. 

He’s saying, _I understand you like they never could. Even though I could not imagine going through what you’ve been through, I understand you and I see you and I know you. And I love you. Deeply, and without reservations or games. I love you enough to blow everyone else out of the water._

Oliver just smiles down at his love, at someone who represents all he’s been able to build and feel despite his parents.

“Oliver,” he replies warmly, closing his eyes and basking in the moment. He never wants to talk about his parents again, because they don’t deserve the way they can affect him sometimes, but he’s glad that Elio knows all of this about him now.

They’re somehow one step closer now, even than _being_ one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't plan to talk about Oliver's past at all really, I just started writing and then boom sadsaddifficult :(
> 
> As always, tell me what you liked and what you want more of!
> 
> Oh! And I did [these](https://theuniversaline.tumblr.com/post/190077427345/drawings-i-did-for-my-fic-which-can-be-found-here) drawings of how I picture Sammy and Elio (I whipped out my light box and did some tracing and then the appropriate alterations ☺️)  
> 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, meeting/telling time, at least for one of the boys :)

It’s two weeks before Thanksgiving when Elio and Micol finally meet.

It’s in a small, elegant restaurant on a Sunday afternoon. Elio meets them only a few minutes after they’ve been seated, walking in shaking off the cold and unwrapping his long knitted scarf. 

“Sorry I’m late,” he says as he arrives, though he knows he’s only a few minutes behind.

“You’re not late, we’ve only just sat down,” Micol insists with a warm, eager smile. She stands up and smiles wider after her initial shock at Elio’s usual European greeting of a kiss to each cheek.

“It’s so wonderful to finally meet you. _Enchanté_ ,” Elio says, holding her hand for a moment and looking into her eyes. Micol looks over to Oliver as if to say ‘you said he lived in Europe but you didn’t say he was _European_ ’, before returning the sentiment as they all sit down. Oliver is studying Elio, not having seen him trying to make a good first impression in twenty years.

He leans over to give him a quick peck on the lips before looking over to assess Micol’s reaction but she’s just smiling at them as if enjoying their happiness.

At first Oliver is nervous they won’t know what to say to each other but he should know better than to doubt his eagle-eyed Micol and his well-socialised Elio, because the second they’ve ordered drinks and a platter for the table they immediately get on like a house on fire. 

Micol is insatiably curious about Elio’s upbringing and his various musical jobs, having never been to Europe or been musical herself. Elio doesn’t hide his fascination with the complicated science Micol studied before becoming a teacher, or the embarrassing stories she can share about Oliver raising their kids. They laugh and bond as they swap stories about hormonal teenage students and the bore of all the university faculty parties that Elio has sometimes had to attend with Marzia, which he will likely eventually have to attend again, with Oliver. 

Oliver barely needs to speak as he sips his drink and watches with a contented smile while two of his favourite people get to know each other over cheese and wine. For a moment he becomes a little sad at the thought of how much he would have missed in his life if Micol hadn’t snapped him out of it, but he’s _not_ missed out, so there’s no point dwelling on it while there’s this wonderful scene playing out before him. 

If he dwells on all that could have been, he’ll miss out on it all even as it happens.

“You should come to our Thanksgiving!” Micol insists with enthusiasm about an hour in. Elio is suddenly obviously hesitant.

“…Would that be a good idea? Marzia and I don’t celebrate, but isn’t it usually a family thing?”

“Not exclusively, at least for us.” Oliver explains, though he also seems to be on the fence about the idea. Micol certainly isn’t – she’s seen the way Oliver has come back to life since he’s been with Elio again and she wants it to continue.

“I’ve always tended to collect strays at Thanksgiving.” Her face is so open and encouraging, Elio finds it difficult to say no.

But Micol must see his hesitation. 

“No pressure, of course!”

“No, none at all – you know your family best,” he rushes to insist. “If you think that’s a good time to do it, you would know better than I would.” Elio smiles. He knows it’s a little tight because he _is_ nervous about how his first meeting with Oliver’s family will go, but he also can’t deny he’s excited to finally have a concrete date to meet the whole family.

Micol is immediately thinking ahead optimistically.

“Once the kids have met you we can have a picnic or something for everyone to meet everyone.”

Elio smiles and nodding in agreement as Micol continues, really enjoying the idea. 

They could arrange it for a week when his parents are in town, too, and then everyone truly can meet everyone important, and Oliver can see them again. And in Elio’s mind, even if Oliver’s kids don’t like him, _nobody_ dislikes his parents. 

And so the date is set. Wednesday, November 26th, Elio will be introduced to Oliver’s family, as his partner. It feels too sudden for Elio but they have to keep moving forward. Micol and Oliver are going to tell the boys about the divorce and about Elio a few days before so it’s not a total surprise, and then they’ll all just have to endure whatever fallout there is and meet face to face. 

Oliver has Elio come over to the house on the Saturday just before, so he can be familiar with the place and not feel completely out of his depth. Micol is on a first date with another teacher, Jacob is at a friend’s house for the night, and Matty is at some kind of astronomy club until 9.

Oliver is immediately at the door as Elio’s taxi arrives at around 6. 

“This is _exactly_ where I thought you would live. You literally have a white picket fence, my blonde-haired, blue-eyed father of two,” he laughs as he comes up the walkway. It’s clear in his voice though, that he’s not truly making fun of Oliver. He reaches up to ruffle Oliver’s hair as he speaks.

“Shut up.” Oliver jests, waving him inside. “I’m not even blonde anymore.”

“No, you’re not,” Elio agrees, gazing up at him affectionately. “It suits you.”

Elio could have stood there indefinitely telling Oliver the things he likes about him but he’s excited to explore the treasure trove of information about Oliver and his family waiting inside.

The interior is simple but warm. There are family photos on many of the walls, a few well-chosen trinkets, good quality wooden furniture intended to last, spotlessly clean... It’s all very American, though not as impersonal as Elio admits to himself he was expecting. 

“It’s so big,” is what Elio finds himself saying.

“Not as big as the villa,” Oliver points out, and Elio turns to him with a raised eyebrow.

“Well the villa is a villa, not a suburban home. My apartment looks like a closet by comparison. This is really nice.”

“…Do you actually think it’s nice?” Oliver asks, sceptical and curious. “You’d never live in a house like this.”

“I can like something without wanting to live in it,” Elio counters, urging Oliver forward to show him more of the house. Oliver and Micol’s room seems to just be a place to sleep, not a place to spend time or enjoy one’s personal environment. There are a few more family photos though, so Elio gets Oliver to explain them while he lies on the bed, imagining them being taken.

Elio’s favourite room is definitely Oliver’s study. It has the most signs of life – of Oliver’s life. Books stacked haphazardly everywhere, some left open from whenever he was writing or studying last, a forgotten coffee cup, more family photos, and then Elio’s favourite part – the postcard he took when he left Italy, framed on the wall.

“Do you still have the book?” Elio asks, hoping to see it again.

“Of course I do,” Oliver replies incredulously, unlocking the right hand drawer of his big wooden desk. He hands the book to Elio with a shy smile.

“I locked it up because I didn’t want to risk anyone doing anything to it. Anything can happen, especially with curious kids…” 

Elio flips to the inscription and reads aloud.

“ _Zwischen Immer und Nie, for you in silence, somewhere in Italy in the mid-eighties_.” There is reverence in his voice as he speaks, like he’s holding a holy object in his hands. 

“I never thought I’d get to hold it again… It was a goodbye. It was so that even if you and I were gone and no one else ever knew about us, someone in your life would at least know that someone loved you in Italy in the mid-eighties.” His voice becomes a little thick at that, at the thought of them both dying without anyone knowing who they were and what they had felt for one another. 

“No more goodbyes, ever again. People will know about us when we’re gone, because we’ll still be together.” Oliver insists, soothing his love and wrapping an arm around his back to pull him close. “Write me a million goodbye inscriptions in a million books and I’ll just come back the next day and do this.” He kisses Elio, pulling the book from his hands and placing it open on the desk and cupping his face gently.

Elio pulls back with a sad, sweet smile and presses his forehead into Oliver’s chest.

“I’m so glad we’re doing this,” he whispers. “I’m nervous about how it’s all going to work out when your children know but… I can’t imagine just trying to forget this again.”

“I’m never going to leave you again.” Oliver murmurs seriously, running his fingers up and down Elio’s spine.

“You’d better not.”

It’s only been a month or two, but they were both hopelessly addicted to one another the second they collided again. Thank God for Sammy Perlman’s enthusiasm and insistence. 

An hour and a half or so later they’ve eaten and talked more about Oliver’s sons. Matty is apparently a big fan of Star Wars and reading while Jacob plays football and listens to Nirvana and Eminem. Elio thinks he can work with that – he has obviously seen Star Wars and he’s heard Sammy playing Nirvana so he’s familiar. At least he’s got a few things to talk about.

Now Oliver is pleading with Elio to play something on the family’s long-neglected upright.

“Why do you even have a piano?” Elio asks, amusedly puzzled. “You don’t play.”

Oliver looks sheepish at that. “I thought maybe one of the kids could take it up, and it would remind me of, you know... you,” he shrugs. “And Italy. They both had lessons for a while but they hated their tutor so they stopped pretty quickly and it’s just been sitting here ever since. I didn’t want to get rid of it.”

“Sentimental,” Elio jibes with a gentle nudge, but he’s smiling at the thought of Oliver wanting to be reminded of him, even back when it was a sad, painful reminder. He doesn’t think Oliver will ever stop doing and saying little things that make him warm all over.

“Okay, maybe I can play something,” he gives in, with an indulgent smile. “Has it been tuned?”

“Not long ago, yeah.”

“How long ago?” He asks as he sits.

Oliver blushes.

“I called to have it done the day after we had coffee.”

Elio just smiles up at him and turns to the keys, playing a few experimental scales.

“Bach?” He asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Whatever the artist wants.” Oliver replies, bringing a chair over so he can watch Elio’s expert fingers move nimbly over the keys as he plays.

“Well in that case,” Elio begins. “I never played this song when we were together, but when I found it years later, all I could hear was us, in Italy. The French title translates to ‘A Boat on the Ocean’. I think it will probably remind you of us back then as well.”

Oliver nods and Elio begins. And Elio is right. 

Oliver wants to watch his agile fingers as they work but he quickly finds himself with his eyes closed, picturing everything he’s remembering. Lying in ‘Heaven’, drinking apricot juice, travelling to the sea to pull a long-sunk masterpiece to the surface once again. Rolling around in the grass, making love for the first time in the bedroom at midnight, forgetting the rest of the world and devouring one another in the streets of Rome. Laughing over lunch in the sun, swimming in the small pool, bike riding into town…

Oliver is so lost in his memories that he doesn’t open his eyes for a few long moments after Elio finishes. He only opens them when he feels Elio’s lip brushing his, to find Elio’s eyes gazing into his own.

“You were so far away,” he murmurs tenderly. 

Oliver nods wordlessly, but remains with his thoughts for a moment longer.

Because yes he was far away enjoying his memories of an old him and an old Elio, but now he’s very much here, and he loves this living, breathing _future_ sitting before him even more. He loves this Elio who has changed countless soiled diapers and helped the mother of his children through a depression while taking care of said children; who has given the sex talk twice _and_ the period talk once because Marzia was away when Vienne got hers for the first time. 

He thinks he loves doing laundry and changing bed sheets and staying in to watch a movie with this Elio even more than he liked bike riding and lazing about with the old one, because this is real life, and this is viable, and this is his forever if they want it.

But for all his thoughts, he just says “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Elio returns, giving him a funny look, like he knows something long and beautiful just crossed Oliver’s mind, but knows he’ll never hear it all.

They’re sitting like that, faces mere centimetres apart, when the door opens.

“You’re home early Micol,” Oliver calls as he turns around to find Matty crossing the threshold and closing the door. Luckily he hasn’t looked inside very hard when he turns to close the door, so it gives them a chance to separate and stand. 

“Oh. It’s you that’s home early, Matty.” Oliver says, hoping he doesn’t sound stressed.

“Yeah, Sarah Miller started throwing up everywhere so Zack’s mom gave me a ride ho—oh,” Matty says when he sees Elio moving out from behind Oliver, looking between them with studying eyes. “Who’s this?”

“This is the friend I’ve been mentioning,” Oliver explains with his heart in his throat. “Elio Perlman.” It feels so wrong to call Elio a friend but it’s only for one more day and it’s an ignorable thought because he’s panicking a little bit because _this wasn’t the plan_. 

But thankfully Elio takes it in his stride and walks over to shake Matty’s hand, saying, “I’ve heard a lot about you,” with a warm, if schooled smile.

“You have?” He asks, looking genuinely surprised to see the mysterious Elio Perlman in his house. “I kind of thought you were made up,” he says, bluntly.

Elio laughs. “Nope, flesh and blood.”

After another moment of looking between his father and Elio he seems to decide to hold his tongue on the questions he really wants to ask until Elio has left – he’s blunt but he’s not rude.

“Dad said you were from Italy but you don’t sound Italian. Can you speak Italian?” Matty asks, instantly more curious than anything else as he files away his other questions.

“ _Sì, so parlare italiano_.” Elio obliges happily as Oliver comes over to stand next to him

“Wow, can you speak any other languages?”

“ _Oui, je parle français. Und ich spreche ein bisschen deutsch_. But not so much the German.” 

Usually he would just tell people which languages he spoke in whichever language they used to ask him, but he senses he can win points with Matty with a few minorly impressive displays.

“And you play the piano?” He asks with excited eyes, pointing to where he saw Elio and Oliver walk over from. 

_Score if that’s something he thinks is cool,_ Elio thinks. _Maybe Oliver is right and things will be easy with Matty._

“I do. I do it as one of my jobs.”

“Do you know how to play anything from Star Wars?” Elio holds in a small giggle at Matty’s enthusiasm and nods. “Can you play it now?”

Elio is about to say yes, he can if Matty wants, when Oliver chimes in.

“Come on Matty, you haven’t even taken off your backpack yet. Go put your things away first.”

“I should probably actually go.” Elio says reluctantly as Matty moves to head up the stairs, knowing Oliver is probably freaking out inside. Matty says makes a disappointed noise and Oliver shoots him a look. It’s fun to see Oliver in Parenting Mode but Elio knows he needs to cut this short now that he’s got the chance. “I’ll play 'Binary Sunset' for you next time I see you,” he bargains.

“That would be cool.” Matty acquiesces, not trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice as he heads to the stairs. 

Elio and Oliver watch him go fondly. 

“That didn’t go so badly.” Elio supplies quietly with a shrug.

“No, but Micol and I might have to tell him tonight, without Jacob.” Oliver sighs, running a hand over his face. “He’s going to ask why she isn’t home right now and he definitely knows something is up with us.”

“Well, maybe it’s a good way to do it, one at a time,” Elio suggests, at a loss.

“Maybe,” Oliver sighs. “We’ll see what he says when it’s just him and me.”

Oliver is sitting at the table for about five minutes after Elio leaves, waiting expectantly for Matty to inevitably make his way downstairs. What he’s not expecting is for him to come down holding the book he left open to Elio’s inscription in his study and a piece of paper, thumping them down on the table. Matty sits across from his father and looks up at him, holding his eyes with an unreadable expression. 

“Are you cheating on mom?” 

The question sits heavy in the air as Oliver tries to process. Matty asks the question like a parent asks their child if the weed they found in their room is theirs. He asks it like he knows the answer and he’s ready to be disappointed in his father for lying on top of what he’s already done. 

Oliver sighs after a moment, wishing Micol were here for this. 

But she’s not. So he breathes in and speaks.

“No, Matty. I’m not cheating on your mom.”

“Okay,” Matty says with a doubtful tone, clearly not believing his father and ready to challenge him. Then he starts listing off points on his fingers.

“So you and mom haven’t been close for a while. You start being out all the time with your ‘friend’ from Italy twenty years ago, and you won’t tell me anything more. Then I come home unexpected to find you’ve got him over here while mom is out. I could believe that there’s something else happening and you are only friends with just those things and that’s why I was cool with him. But then your bed sheets are all crumpled and your study door is open and _this book_ is lying open.” 

He flips it open to the inscription and reads his translation aloud from the piece of paper, his accusative tone a sharp contrast to Elio’s reverence earlier, “ _Between always and never, for you in silence, somewhere in Italy in the mid-eighties._ ”

He flips the cover shut as if resting his case.

“The Italian you knew in the eighties who speaks some German wrote that to you, and ‘just friends’ don’t write things like that to each other. You reconnected and you’re cheating on mom with Elio. What else am I supposed to think?” 

The look of betrayal and confusion in his son’s eyes breaks Oliver’s heart but all he can think is _fuck, Sherlock_.

“Look—” he begins but Matty isn’t having it.

“Don’t even think about lying to me about this, dad.”

Oliver looks imploringly into his son’s eyes, trying desperately to communicate his sincerity.

“I wasn’t going to lie to you Matty. We were literally going to tell both of you about this tomorrow.” 

Matty looks doubtful but the ‘ _we_ were going to tell you’ is making him listen. He nods for Oliver to continue.

“You’re right about some of it. Elio and I were together in Italy.” He pauses to assess his son’s reaction, but he apparently isn’t bothered that his until now seemingly heterosexual father has been with a man. So he moves forward. “And we’re together again, now.”

“And that’s _not_ cheating _how_?” Matty asks immediately, incredulous.

“It’s not cheating because your mother and I aren’t together anymore." Oliver says in a rush. "...We haven’t been for a while. She’s out because she’s on a date right now.”

At that Matty takes pause.

“I…" he trails off, thinking. "I guess that’s not that surprising, actually,” he eventually says, simply, seeming a little disappointed at the news but not as upset as Oliver might have thought. “I did know you guys weren’t really close anymore, like I said before.”

Oliver doesn’t quite know how to proceed.

“…How do you feel, about all of that?”

“I don’t know,” Matty says honestly – he’s always been level-headed and logical about things after coming down from the heat of the moment. “I mean I don’t really ever remember you guys being super lovey-dovey like some kids’ parents I know…” but then he looks up, baffled. “I didn’t think it was because you were secretly gay though. How did mom not know for so long?”

Oliver chokes for a second before coughing uncomfortably – he really never thought he’d have to explain his sexuality to his children. It’s not a conversation most people have with their offspring.

Matty widens his eyes and raises his hands, misreading Oliver’s discomfort and not wanting his father to take his comment the wrong way.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay dad!”

Oliver just shakes his head.

“I’m uh—I’m not gay, Matty,” he says painfully.

“But you’re breaking up with mom to be with a man?”

“Your mom and I haven’t been together for a year. I’m not leaving her to be with a man – we’ve been separated, and also I’m with Elio,” he explains, gesturing in order to group the two ideas separately.

“Well what does that make you?” Matty asks, his curiosity kicking in as the information processes – he sometimes gets like this and needs to be reminded to be sensitive around others, with things like death and injury.

“Well, I like both men _and_ women, so I’m something called bisexual.” Oliver explains with a tight lipped smile and an eyebrow raise at the end, visibly uncomfortable. He was prepared for anger and tension. He hadn't been prepared for his son expecting an open dialogue about his sexuality. 

“Oh, okay.” Matty accepts easily before his mind visibly returns to the situation at hand and his expression turns thoughtful and pensive. “So what’s going to happen now?”

“I don’t know.” Oliver replies truthfully as he relaxes, glad that the sexuality portion of the night’s questioning is over. 

But then comes a barrage of questions Oliver either can’t answer before the next one comes or doesn’t know the answer to.

“Are you and mom divorcing soon? Have you already? Are we going to have to live in separate houses? Is mom’s date really serious? Are you and Elio really serious? Is Elio going to be our like, step-dad? Are you going to live with him? When are we going to see you and mom? Is there going to be custody stuff? Are we going to have two Hanukkahs?”

“I don’t know, Matty,” Oliver repeats, feeling exposed as he looks down at his tightly clutched hands. He wishes he could tell Matty what’s going to happen in his life, but he can’t. “I don’t know what’s going to happen now except that your mom and I are going to keep loving you and your brother while we figure it all out.”

In that moment Matty seems to see his father in a new, more vulnerable, human light – he’s not just his often-stern, professor father who helps him with his essays and bends the truth when Matty asks something difficult. He’s a person, with a past, and his own life, and things he wants for himself, and fears, and things he can’t control. And he’s finally decided to trust Matty with his honesty. He’s finally been vulnerable in front of his son who has been trying to know him from the outside for as long as he can remember.

Matty gets up from his chair and walks over to his father and gives him a hug. Oliver doesn’t shake or cry as his son wraps his arms around him, just returns his hold and allows his fears to ebb away at his acceptance. There are a lot of things that will be up in the air for a long time, but Matty knows and he’s taken it just fine. He doesn’t hate him. Micol and Elio are on his side and they can all figure it out. 

_I told the truth, and nothing bad happened_ , he thinks, relieved as he pulls back.

“How do you feel about Elio being at Thanksgiving, so you guys can get to know him?” Oliver asks, realising in that moment that it’s much better to ask the boys if they’d be okay with that than to just tell them they’ve arranged it. Oliver knows all about needing some control over one’s life when things change.

“I’d like that, dad.” Matty replies with a reassuring smile. “Doesn’t Elio have his own family Thanksgiving though?”

“No, him and his kids don’t celebrate,” Oliver explains.

“Oh, right, he’s from Italy... How old are Elio’s kids? Are they near my age, could we hang out? Can Elio teach me how to play Binary Sunset?” Matty asks, and from there it’s just another million questions, only this time Oliver has the answers and happily obliges.

Micol comes home at the end and widens her eyes at the sight of Matty home early, but Oliver just waves his hand reassuringly and smiles. When Matty turns back from greeting his mom he says genuinely, as he stands, "It was a really nice inscription in that book dad - you should tell me about when you and Elio met, someday. Probably not right away, but I'd like to hear about it sometime." 

Oliver tears up a little bit at his curious son's complete and utter acceptance, and nods with a watery smile as he walks away. 

Micol comes over and places her handbag down, gesturing to where Matty has disappeared behind her, a confused but happy expression on her face. 

"He figured it out," Oliver says simply, elbows on the table and hands clasped in front of his mouth. "He figured it out and I explained and he didn't care at all that Elio is a man. He didn't even hesitate about that, he took it so well, Micol, he's _excited_ ," Oliver says, a few small, stray tears spilling over as Micol comes over to embrace him. 

"Of course he is," she says tenderly. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help you tell him."

"No, I think it was better this way, he had questions." Oliver laughs, pulling back and wiping his cheeks dry. 

"You know I think I've seen you cry more in the last few weeks than in our entire lives before this," Micol says fondly. 

"Well there's been a lot of messy stuff going on." 

"Yes, there has," she agrees. "It's good though, I think. Somehow I think it's all going to turn out okay. Better than okay." 

And the team of twenty years smile back at one another, certain in that moment that everyone will survive what tomorrow brings. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, Matty takes it pretty well because he's a pretty chill kid. (Honestly a lot of his reaction is just how I would have reacted when I was fourteen because I was never especially attached to the idea of my parents staying together ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯)
> 
> Next chapter we'll finally get to know Jacob a little better and see his reaction :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit hits the fan in this one. It's a bit shorter than usual but putting any more events in this chapter would have been weird.

Jacob comes home in the morning seeming agitated, so Micol and Oliver just let him go to him room after his moody greeting. 

They’re both a little relieved to have an excuse to put off telling him, and Oliver spends the day considering that Thanksgiving might not be a good idea after all. He has a very bad feeling about telling Jacob – it would feel like the calm before the storm if they didn’t spent the whole day edgily tiptoeing around him. They try to keep putting it off throughout dinner but towards the end Jacob sighs and puts his cutlery down.

“You all obviously know something I don’t know, you’re being weird.” His tone is irritable; bad start. “Just tell me whatever it is.”

Micol, Oliver and Matty look appropriately guilty as they place their own cutlery down and prepare for an uncomfortable conversation.

“There is something we’ve been meaning to tell you today…” Micol begins slowly, but Jacob interrupts, snapping.

“I know. I just said I know.”

Oliver frowns at his son’s unnecessarily acidic tone. He’s been testier lately but never with his mother. She’s usually been the good cop to Oliver’s bad cop with Jacob, so he listens to her more. It’s a bad sign, but all Oliver can do is see what happens at this point. They’re at the top of the roller coaster and the only way to go is down.

“There’s no delicate way to say this so I’m just going to say it,” Micol says, levelling with her son. “Your father and I are getting a divorce.”

Jacob is silent for a few moments as his expression pinches and he sits up straighter. 

“You’re _what?_ ” he asks, his voice raising in pitch and volume, “ _Why?_ ”

“Well... because we’re not in love anymore, sweetie,” Micol says gently.

“Don’t call me ‘sweetie’ when you’re telling me you’re getting a divorce,” he spits before his voice becomes uncertain and upset, “…You guys _love_ each other.”

He sounds like a lost child and Oliver’s heart clenches.

“Yes, we do love each other and we always will,” she reassures, placing a hand over Oliver's for a moment. But then she shakes her head. “But we’re not _in_ love.”

But Jacob’s not having it.

“Why give up so easily? Lots of couples fall a bit out of love, why can’t you just go to counselling?” he asks, desperation in his voice.

“Because your father is seeing someone.”

It takes a moment for the words to compute for Jacob.

“What?” Finally Jacob turns his now cold and hard gaze on his father, who has sat silent, hating every moment. He meets Jacob’s eyes, not knowing what to say. 

“ _Who?_ ” Jacob demands.

Oliver steels himself. 

“His name is Elio Perlman. He’s a musician. He’s from Milan,” he supplies, uselessly. 

Jacob shakes his head as though trying to rearrange the words until they make sense. He might have expected to hear that his father was dating some twenty five year old with tits pushed up to her ears - he's heard of that happening - but this? 

“ _He?_ ” His voice fills the room. Oliver flinches, closing his eyes for a moment. “You _cheated_ on my mom with a _guy?_ ”

It’s not lost on Oliver that Jacob refers to his mother as though Oliver weren’t also his father, but he dismisses the thought to correct him.

“I didn’t cheat,” he insists.

“Oh, did you ask her _permission_ before you started fucking some Italian dude?” he scoffs sarcastically, gesturing harshly and letting his hand fall back to the table with a loud slap. His volume only increases as he asks, “When were you even _doing_ this?”

“Lower your voice please,” Micol says firmly, hoping that hearing something that establishes normalcy from the parent he seems to think has been wronged will help. But it doesn’t.

“I think I’m allowed to be a little bit angry,” he yells, not giving in. “You want me to just accept that you’re breaking up and immediately be happy that my dad is shacking up with some Italian musician guy? And can we _talk_ about that for a second, what the fuck?”

“ _Language, Jacob!_ ” Micol’s voice cracks through the room, and usually that tone would stop everything, but he just barrels onwards.

“Language? You wanna talk about my fucking _language_ right now? You’re telling me that you’re ripping my family apart and altering things I have no control over and you want me to watch my language?” He yells incredulously, before his face becomes an unreachable mask of rage, eyes shifting between his parents. “Fuck you! You’re the ones imposing on _me_ , you’re the ones making problems! I think you can let me off the leash for a second while you _ruin_ my life!” 

“They’re not ruining your life…” Matty mutters unhelpfully, side-eyeing his brother with judgement at his reaction.

“God, just _shut up_ you little fucking… prick! Of course you’re okay with it,” he huffs, glaring at his brother and shaking his head. “That’s how they _want_ you to feel – you’re a _good _little boy, treats for you!” he spits before turning his betrayed glare on his parents again, “But _I’m_ not going to just roll over while some Italian asshole comes in to _fuck my dad_ and _ruin my life!_ ”__

____

“He’s _from_ Italy, he’s not like, Italian…” Matty mutters again with crossed arms, annoyed by his brother’s insulting words. Micol and Oliver are too shocked by their eldest son’s words to say much of anything. Jacob is too furious to respond to his brother’s contrary remark and turns his ire on his father. 

__

“What does he give you that we can’t, huh?”

__

Oliver seems at a loss for words at first, gaping like a fish in the face of a question he can’t win in answering. Eventually he just says “I love him, Jacob,” with a small, helpless shrug and wide eyes.

__

Jacob stares for a moment before laughing, long and bitter, as he stands. Hearing his father sound so vulnerable as he says he loves another man is the final straw for him. 

__

“Who _are_ you? Because my father would never…” he gestures to Oliver indignantly while looking for the right word. “…Whatever this is,” he finishes, too angry to think clearly. 

__

He looks at Oliver as though he literally does not recognise the man before him. “You think you’re the first guy in the world to be tempted outside his marriage? I’m sure most fathers are but they stay with what they committed to. God, you are so selfish.”

__

At that he immediately turns and walks up the stairs, leaving no time for anybody to think of an appropriate response.

__

Micol and Oliver shoot Matty a look as soon as he’s out of sight. 

__

“You weren’t being very sensitive just then Matty. It wasn’t very helpful and I think you knew that,” Micol lectures.

__

Matty just nods sullenly and goes to his room without a word, dragging his feet. 

__

Micol wants to comfort her husband but she needs to do damage control upstairs. He seems to be trying to absorb the events of the past few minutes, staring unseeingly at the table with an expression of dazed despondency. She pats a hand on his and he looks up, snapped out of it for now.

__

“I’m going to go finish explaining. It’s probably best that you stay away for now.”

__

Oliver just nods in agreement and returns to his thoughts as Micol leaves.

__

When she enters Jacob’s room he is sitting on the floor against his bed throwing a small ball angrily against the wall like a scene out of a movie, but he softens a little when he sees his mother and not Oliver.

__

At first he says nothing – just sets his mouth and looks to the side – but eventually he speaks.

__

“I still don’t know why you guys can’t just go to counselling,” he says miserably, as he inspects the ball in his hands. And then more heatedly, a hint of judgement in his tone, “You’re just going to let dad leave you for some _man_ without even a fight?”

__

Micol sits down on the bed and sighs. 

__

“We’re not going to counselling because we’re fine not being together, Jacob. I know it’s hard to accept, but we really are. Your dad didn’t leave me for Elio at all. We hadn’t been together for over a year when he and Elio reconnected.” 

__

She had meant it to be soothing but his expression turns furious.

__

“You haven’t been together for a _year_? When the fuck were you going to tell us?” At first he’s just fired up, but he quickly turns sarcastic and churlish. “ _Us_ , you know, _your children?_ Or have you forgotten that we matter too and what you do affects us?”

__

“We’re telling you now, Jacob,” Micol replies, not unkindly but not giving any ground. “We just wanted to give you normalcy for as long as possible.” She reaches out to run a soothing hand through his blonde hair, but he just shifts out from under her hand and shuffles further away.

__

“Yeah, well your timing sucks and none of this is normal.” His voice is hard, angry.

__

“I know it’s a lot.”

__

There’s silence for a few moments while Micol thinks of what to say next, but Jacob beats her to it.

__

“You call this guy by his first name like you’ve met him, have you?”

__

“Yes, once. We had lunch. I liked him a lot.”

__

“Oh you like him, do you? That’s great, I’m happy for you.” Jacob nods sarcastically before looking away and glaring in the corner. 

__

Silence descends upon the space again for a few moments until Jacob breaks it again.

__

“Why _now_ , why is he doing this to us _now?_ ” Jacob moans, his face in his hands. He’d never say it aloud but all that’s running through his mind is that things at school and with his friends have only been getting harder; his friends were only teasing him more and more about not skipping classes and smoking with them or having a girlfriend last night, it’s only getting _more_ embarrassing to have Matty with the Doctor Who backpack as his brother – why is this one stable thing changing now?

__

“Honey he was scared,” Micol implores. “He didn’t want to make things different here until he couldn’t hold it in any longer. He would have waited forever for you boys if Elio hadn’t come back. He was terrified to start up with him again even though he wanted it so, so badly, because he was afraid of how you two would take it all.”

__

Jacob frowns and blinks for a moment.

__

“…Wait, what do you mean _again?_ ” He asks confoundedly, like another bombshell has been dropped. Which Micol supposes it has been. “Has he been with this guy before? When? When you were together before? Did you have us then?”

__

She sighs again and explains.

__

“Your father and Elio were together in 1983 when he was interning with Elio’s father as a graduate student. We weren’t together at the time; he’s never cheated on me so you can stop thinking that,” and then “…Look, _I_ was the one who told him to pursue it again when they reconnected in October.”

__

“This has only been going since _last month?!_ He’s ruining everything over a fucking fling?”

__

“It’s not a fling, they never stopped being in love, Jacob.”

__

It’s not comforting like she wants it to be.

__

“Great, good to know my dad has been in love with some _guy_ the whole time he’s been married to my _mom_.”

__

“Loving Elio didn’t stop him from loving me, or you, or your brother. And you know better than to judge a man for being with a man.” Micol’s disapproval comes through loud and clear as she frowns, addressing his tone every time he's said _he_ or _man_.

__

“I’m not mad because a man is with a man, I’m mad because my _dad_ is with a man and not my mom!”

__

“Your father also deserves to be happy Jacob.”

__

“Sure but why does he have to be happy at _my_ expense?” Jacob groans, dragging his hands frustratedly over his short hair.

__

“If your father hadn’t found someone now one of us would have eventually and we would have told you then. I understand that this is difficult but he’s not doing anything at your expense, Jacob. That’s not fair.”

__

He huffs wrathfully, widening his eyes and gesturing furiously as he speaks.

__

“ _Fair!_ You know what’s not _fair?_ You two can just go and make decisions about how my life is going to go without consulting me at all, and then just dictate to me how it’s going to be and expect me to swallow it. I’m not going to make this easy just because you want me to.” And in his eyes Micol can that see her son means it. “I’m not your fucking precious little star child Matty. I’m not going to be cool about this, _none_ of this is okay with me.”

__

“…That’s okay; you can take all the time you need.” Micol says, nodding, hoping her acceptance will cool the situation, but her composure only serves to tip him over the edge.

__

“Can you stop being so _goddamn calm_ about this?!” He roars before wrapping his arms around his head, hiding his face, full of fury, between his arms and his bent knees. 

__

Micol just waits, not knowing what he wants her to do.

__

“Just leave me the fuck alone.” He mutters darkly, and Micol nods, thinking it’s probably for the best not to speak any more tonight. She’s given him the facts – it’s up to him what he does with them for now.

__

Not thirty seconds after she closes the door angry music is blaring from the room and she wonders whether it’s to cover the sound of her son’s crying.

__

__

__

Meanwhile Oliver has been on the phone to Elio, telling him it’s definitely not a good idea to come over for Thanksgiving anymore and trying to ignore the yelling upstairs. He shudders at the thought of Jacob talking to his mother like that but she wouldn’t want him to rush in to defend her. He was just going to let Elio know and return to focusing on what his son needs from him, but when Elio asked what happened he couldn’t not tell him.

__

“I just feel so useless,” he moans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Micol is up there fighting _my_ battle, in the war _I_ started, and I’m just sitting down here on the phone like a useless lump. I barely got a word in before Jacob left. I completely froze.”

__

There’s silence on the line for a moment while Elio considers, not without feelings of guilt himself. But eventually he sighs and gives rational advice he could hear his father giving.

__

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to think of it like that – it’s not about who fights the battles. You’re all on the same team. It’s about what Jacob needs right now. Two bombshells in one night isn’t easy.”

__

“I just wish I could _do_ something.”

__

“I know, but you can’t,” Elio says, understanding but stern. “You can only not make it worse. You love Jacob enough to suffer through doing nothing, because you know that anything you do right now will make it worse.”

__

“I do. You’re right.” Oliver sighs, defeated. He can do no more tonight. “I just wish you weren’t.”

__

“I know,” Elio replies sympathetically. “I wish that too.”

__

“I knew it was all going too well,” he mutters darkly. “I guess things just have to not be okay for a while.”

__

Elio wants to say, ‘at least the worst part is over’, or ‘the only way through this is through it’, but people don’t always want to hear such things. Oliver just has to suffer through things being wrong right now. He needs to feel his fear and guilt.

__

Elio just hums sympathetically in agreement.

__

“I’ll call you soon,” Oliver breathes, sounding exhausted. “…I love you so much.” The words sound like a cry for a lifeline, which Elio is only too relieved to be able to supply.

__

“I love you too…” He takes a deep breath and whispers softly into the receiver. “ _Elio, Elio, Elio…_ ”

__

“ _Oliver…_ ”

__

There’s a sad smile in Oliver’s voice as he replies. They hang up without another word – none are necessary. 

__

They decided to gamble in a contained atmosphere of warmth, understanding, and security… But the dice are truly in the air now and all they can do is wait to see how they fall. 

__

Nothing is okay suddenly. And it won’t be okay again until it is. This is the hard part.

__

As Oliver stands up from the chair beside the phone Micol comes down the stairs. At first her face is impassive, tired.

__

“How did it go?” Oliver asks uncertainly.

__

She frowns softly, upset.

__

“Not well. He said he’s not going to make it easy just because we want him to.” Her eyes are sad at her next words but no tears come. “We’ve usually been on the same side before and he’s definitely more angry at you, but he’s angry at me for this too. I tried to be calm so he’d calm down and think more clearly but it just made him more angry and now I don’t think he’s going to listen to anyone about it.”

__

Oliver closes the space between them and embraces his wife – still his wife, for now, he thinks with a sigh. 

__

“This is just the first night,” he says, and it’s supposed to be a comfort but his mind immediately twists the words and they become ominous and threatening. 

__

Everything is going to change now and this is only the first night.

__

He murmurs more comforting platitudes that don’t help but can’t hurt as they hold one another and make their way upstairs. They poke their heads in to ensure Matty is okay and he says he is, though they know he’ll probably be up thinking or reading ‘til late tonight. They can’t expect anyone to sleep on a night like this. 

__

Once in bed they lie separately, facing one another, neither sure what tomorrow will bring. Jacob could wake up and realise that he doesn’t want to make things any harder than they already will be for him, or he could wake up ready to raise hell. There’s no way of knowing until morning. 

__

Both were so certain last night that they would be able to face this day. Now they’re not as sure.

__

“You know he didn’t mean what he said,” Micol murmurs. 

__

All Oliver can think is _No, I don’t know he didn’t mean it. Maybe I am selfish, maybe I am a bad father who couldn’t commit._

__

But he whispers, “He seems really hung up on the fact that Elio is a man.” 

__

Micol lets out a long breath.

__

“He said it wasn’t that you were with a man, it was that you were with a man instead of me. It’ll be an adjustment for him, I think, but he’ll probably be fine with it eventually.”

__

“Eventually,” Oliver murmurs fearfully, letting the issue drop. His thoughts become cacophonous as the room goes silent again. 

__

_How long is eventually? And ‘probably’ just sounds like ‘maybe not’ right now. What’s the likelihood that my son will never be comfortable around the love of my life? If we did this differently might it be better? What’s the likelihood that he looks at me differently forever after this? He’ll_ probably _accept it_ eventually, _but it’s no comfort._

__

There’s no comfort at all, except the thought that this is the only way he can spend the rest of his life with Elio. This is pain with a purpose. It’s the only thought that keeps him from utter panic and regret as the night drags on and his mind tortures him.

__

_It’s all coming true, you’re so selfish, it’s already dividing Jacob and Matty further, it’s already affecting Jacob’s relationship with his mother. Jacob was right, you’re so goddamn selfish…_

__

Oliver’s mind is at war all night as he tries to tell himself that he’s done his best, that it will be enough, that it will all be better soon.

__

__

__

A few angry tears escape Jacob but he doesn’t sob brokenly like a child whose fairy tale has been shattered, locked away in his room. Fuck that. The music isn’t to drown out his cries. Oliver and Micol’s eldest son is seething, letting the music feed his feelings of spite, and injustice. 

__

_‘He would have waited forever for you if Elio had never come back’_ echoes over and over in his head as he paces his room like a caged animal. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for some guy called _Elio_.

__

Elio. Fucking. Perlman. 

__

Italian, musician, homewrecker. Fucking Casanova. 

__

_I’m not going to let them make me feel fucking sad about this,_ he thinks to himself in his rage, pacing and scoffing, working himself up.

__

_God what are my friends going to say? I’m angry. I’m pissed the fuck off. I’m not going to cry for them, I’m going to be fucking angry. I refuse to spend almost seventeen years of my life believing my perfectly normal parents care about each other and how their actions affect my life, and then let them off the hook by being soft for them and crying about it when_ they _fuck up._

__

_If they don’t care, then I don’t fucking care._

__

_I don’t care._

__

_I don’t care at all._  


__

__

The morning after that endless night Oliver is sitting at the table where they argued the night before, sipping a coffee with a tired, shaky hand and failing to read a newspaper. He got maybe three hours of interrupted sleep last night, total. He and Micol keep trading exhausted, wired, anxious looks. They’ve been relatively casual about how this was all going to happen, Micol in particular simplifying it and just acting, wanting Oliver to be happy. But now it’s dawning on them both how difficult and complicated this will probably be. 

__

Finally, after what feels like hours but is probably only twenty minutes of sitting and waiting, they hear footsteps on the stairs. Immediately alert they try to keep their expressions neutral as Jacob appears, fully dressed and with his backpack on.

__

“Good morning.” Micol says tentatively.

__

Jacob narrows his eyes and huffs one short, dry, incredulous laugh through his nose before walking to the door, slamming it as he leaves.

__

Oliver and Micol sigh in unison – it’s going to be like that then.

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's be nice to Jacob, he's got some shit going on right now and he's not ready to be soft with his feelings :'( he won't be for a while - much of the rest of this will be about Jacob's journey with this adjustment
> 
> Comments are my lifeblood, please let me know what you think/want/fear for the future of the fic 😈


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a time jump of two months at the start of this one - it just made more sense to skip, plot-wise. 
> 
> Jacob's having a rough time and as a result so is everyone else... he kind of takes it a bit harder than is reasonable but he’s a teenager.
> 
> It was very difficult to remember how American high schools work and to call things by the right names so if I screwed something up then sorry :)

The fallout is almost everything Oliver feared. Jacob isn’t doing drugs that he knows of, but he hasn’t said a civil word to Micol, Oliver, or Matty since they told him. Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and New Years have come and gone, and things have only continued on a downward trajectory.

Jacob drops football completely. His grades drop from consistent B’s to a patchwork of C’s and fails and he refuses to do anything about it. His parents and teachers’ stern, concerned words bounce off of him and onto the floor like he’s bulletproof – which is how he feels every time he decides to just stop listening. He feels so powerful, like he’s finally got some control over his life, whenever he says to them, “I’m not even listening,” and watches their worried faces turn frustrated. Fuck them.

At first he’s at least attending all his classes but when one of Matty’s friends lets the Lachmans’ situation slip to his older brother, Jacob’s friends start goading him into doing all of the things he used to refuse to do with it. He blows off a lot of his classes, he only half pays attention when he does show up. He comes home after curfew reeking of cigarette smoke and when he gets in he locks himself in his room before anyone can even get a hello in. 

He’s mean to Matty when they run into each other at school, while his friends laugh, and Oliver and Micol know Matty hasn’t cared before but they can tell it’s finally starting to get to him. He’s not said anything but they know he misses his brother.

Oliver is torn between fear of touching the situation and making it worse, and the fear that if he gives Jacob too much space his son is going to destroy his life and relationships before he’s ready to settle down. It keeps him up at night most nights and his work suffers for it. Nothing drastic – he’s not going to get fired – but he knows he’s noticeably exhausted and short with people. 

Even things with Elio have suffered. They don’t see each other nearly as often as they did before, not wanting to rub it in for Jacob who gives his father a dirty look every time he walks out the door other than for work. 

Elio and Oliver spend their time together trying to distract themselves but more often than Oliver would care to admit he just ends up dragging his feet through Elio’s apartment to collapse in exhaustion in his arms on the bed. Elio is only too happy to be the grounding comfort that allows Oliver to catch up on sleep for a few hours, but he dearly misses the warm lightness of before. He misses giggling with Oliver about dishes until they fall into bed for hours but he’s waited twenty years for this – he can wait a few months more barely breaking a sweat.

This is hard but this is real life.

He only wishes there was anything any of them could do but wait.

Jacob comes home at nine o’clock on a Wednesday evening in mid-January and as usual, he makes no effort to hide the stench of cigarette smoke wafting off of him or give an excuse. Micol and Oliver knew he wasn’t dead or dying because he responded to their text – initially they bought only their son a cell phone so they could call him while he was out going walkabout after school, but it quickly became apparent that they would need cell phones of their own to text him, as he refused to answer calls from his embarrassing parents around his friends.

Jacob stares into the dining room where Oliver is sitting with a plate of leftovers waiting for him. He’s not saying anything but Oliver is fairly certain his eyes are communicating his thoughts, silently screaming _‘You’re such a smart kid, what are you doing?!’_ at his son.

Jacob glances down at the food from behind his now-shaggy hair and continues walking after muttering that he already ate, but Micol stops him in front of the stairs, a peace-making expression on her face. Diplomacy so far has proven ineffective but they’ve not given up just yet.

“Your birthday is coming up, any ideas about what you want?” Her voice is light, as though everything isn’t horribly wrong. As usual it’s the wrong move for Jacob – nothing is ever the right move anymore.

“I don’t want anything from you, no need to start pretending you care about what I want now,” he says flatly before continuing up the stairs. It’s silent until he reaches the top.

“You can’t be this angry at us forever Jacob,” Micol calls up, exhausted. 

“Really?” he asks, facetiously, turning on his heel to look down at his mother. “Because it kind of feels like I can.”

Her words have no effect on him anymore, no matter how tearfully, exhaustedly, authoritatively they’re spoken. 

Micol sighs and collects the plate of leftovers from the table. She starts scraping them into the trash with a fork. When she drops the fork into the bin by accident she just pauses for a moment before sighing again with closed eyes and dropping the whole plate into the trash.

_Fuck it._

Oliver understands completely. 

Micol joins him at the table, sitting opposite.

“How much longer can we let him try to deal with this himself.” It’s phrased like a question but she states it, voice low and flat.

“I don’t know.” Oliver replies, voice equally dead. “I don’t know what but we’re going to have to do something at some point. He’s going to fail the year and then he’ll hate us even more and it’ll spiral. I can just see it spiralling into something so much worse,” he groans, head in his hands, covering prominent shadows beneath tired eyes that can’t stop seeing visions of his son dropping out, getting in with worse crowds and ending up in jail or addicted to hard drugs or dead. Worst case scenarios are the norm in Oliver’s mind of late despite his best efforts.

Micol says nothing at first, just staring into the middle distance and imagining all her own horrible ways this could get worse. But she catches herself and shakes out of it.

“It’s not there yet so let’s just… let’s not start jumping to conclusions that aren’t helpful.” She catches Oliver’s eye and holds it. “We’ll give him a few more weeks and then we’ll explore our options.”

There’s no hope in Oliver’s eyes as he nods and stands to go upstairs and spend another few hours lying in his bed blaming himself for every bad thing in his family’s lives.

The next day Jacob skips his last period history class to meet Warren Durst in the bathroom where he said he’d be with the fake ID he insisted he could get him. And sure enough he does – Jacob thought he was talking out his ass but it looks like a pretty convincing fake. It says his name is Friedrich Zimmer which is kind of lame but whatever, he’s not complaining. He can pretend to have German parents if anyone questions it. He’s got something to impress the guys with this afternoon – maybe they’ll finally stop calling him a fucking pussy all the time. 

They’re kind of dicks to him but at least they don’t completely alter his life in one night and expect him to smile about it like their obvious favourite angel child. And if he can get a little more respect with shit like this then he’ll finally shuck off his cautious reputation from before and they’ll ease up on the ribbing and it’ll be good. He’ll have something solid again after the ruining of his family life got out and threatened the friendships he started trying to sure up.

_Fucking dad. Fucking Italian Casanova asshole._

When Kyle says “Shit man, finally joining the fold?” and offers him a cigarette that afternoon when he sees the ID, he’s pretty sure it’s looking up. It’s so much easier to hang out with his friends now that he’s not worried about staying a wholesome cog in the machine of his straight-laced family anymore – though as it turns out, not so straightly laced after all. He huffs a bitter laugh to himself at that, taking a drag of his cigarette as Kyle goes on about all the things he can do with the guys now that his ‘balls have finally dropped’.

_Ugh, shut the fuck up man._

Jacob just fakes a good-natured laugh at that and punches Kyle in the shoulder, hoping it’ll be the last time he says shit like that today. It’s really starting to piss him off but he can’t risk losing this too. If he can’t have the family he wants he’ll have the friends he wants – he wonders if his dad knows that his obvious disapproval of his friends only makes him want to be around them more.

They shoot the shit for a bit before Adrian and Zeke show up and he gets the momentary satisfaction of their loud, rapt reactions before they head in the direction of the nearest liquor store. It’s only by sheer force of will that he manages to stop his hands shaking and look nonchalant as he hands over his ID and the money Zeke gave him ‘as a present for finally reaching puberty’.

_God, I know it’s a joke but just… fuck off._

“Welcome to the big boys’ table dude, enjoy.” Zeke says, clapping him on the back as they all part ways at sunset. “Maybe now you’ll finally remove the stick from your ass and stop being fucking lame and smoke up with us some time.”

“Haha, maybe.” Jacob says, but he doesn’t mean it at all. There’s still something utterly forbidden and terrifying to him about drugs, even just pot. Even the little hip flask-sized bottle of bourbon sitting in his backpack is making him a little uneasy to have in his possession, though he hates to admit it to himself.

_Man up, Jacob._

When he gets home his parents look relieved to see him home before the dark has set in and even that just pisses him off. Enough that he swallows his nervousness and grabs a Coke from the fridge before locking himself in his room. They won’t bother him tonight.

He turns his music up loud and pulls the bottle out from his bag, sitting cross-legged on his bed with the bourbon and the Coke sitting in front of him. He only needs to think about his parents’ relief downstairs and how he doesn’t want them to be happy for a scant moment before he’s ready to screw his courage and drink.

He’s expecting it to be bad but _Jesus Christ it is foul; it’s like fire._ It’s a good thing his music is so loud all the time because his parents would probably come check on him if they heard his coughing right now. He’s glad he did this for the first time alone as he takes a long swig from the Coke. If he’d been a fucking tool like that for his first drink in front of his friends he’d never hear the end of it.

He feels like such a loser in the moment that it spurs him to prove to himself that he’s not, as he takes another, longer swig and immediately washes it down with Coke, trying desperately not to taste it. He downs the whole bottle before he really feels it using this method, and an hour later he’s lying flat on the bed.

Fucking wasted.

“Nng, god thissdoesn’t feel good,” he moans, rolling over miserably, rubbing his cheeks which are pretty damn numb. 

_Is that normal?_

“Why d’people fucking _do_ thiss?”

The room is spinning and his stomach is upset and this is very bad he doesn’t feel good he doesn’t want to feel like this anymore oh god make it stop. 

_What if I’m a fucking freak and I don’t even like drinking? Who doesn’t like drinking? I just did too much, right? I can’t be the fucking loser who doesn’t drink, they’ll be such assholes about it. I can’t lose my friends too._

His thoughts are spiralling, only stopped when it becomes apparent that he’s in immediate need of a wastebasket. 

Clumsily Jacob tumbles off the bed and scrambles across his floor just in time to be sick into the bin, grateful for the plastic liner. It’s simultaneously the best and worst thing he’s ever felt to empty himself of the horrible fluids inside of him. It doesn’t taste any better coming back up than it did going down and his stomach _aches_ from the heaving, but at least he doesn’t feel nauseous anymore by the time he’s done. 

He just feels like he’s on the teacup ride at Disneyland and he can’t fucking get off. This isn’t what he wanted at all. Everything feels even _more_ out of his control now, he can’t even control his own vision right now. He can’t even control his tongue or his fingers properly, like a goddamn baby.

_Why do I have to be such a goddamn loser baby? I’m so fucking dizzy._

And then,

_Why can’t things just go back to the way they were? I miss the way things used to be._

He is despondent as he curls up on his side on the floor and begins to cry like the baby he feels like. He hasn’t allowed himself to be weak enough to cry since that first night when those few angry tears escaped him and he wiped them furiously away. But now he sobs desperately and drunkenly, as it feels like everything that’s wrong in his life piles on top of him.

It’s probably too late to fix his grades this semester, his friends won’t just let him relax, Matty won’t stop looking at him like he’s the bad guy because apparently he’s in love with Elio too, and his dad is still _fucking some Italian guy while he sleeps in the same bed as his wife and the mother of his children._ And _she_ ’s cool with it.

He wishes he could just be like Matty, and not remember his parents actually being in love the way he doesn’t. It’s not all just something that just happened for him, it’s something he believed was unshakeable that was ripped away from him suddenly, and with no warning he could see. He’s not like Matty, he didn’t see it coming. He can’t talk to his (apparently secretly bizarre) family about it and he can’t talk to his friends about it – he spends his whole day trying to make them _forget_ about it thanks to Matty and his big mouth…

He grieves and cries as he tries to keep his head above water, but every time he thinks he’s done and ready to just be bitter again, another wave comes crashing down to choke him. Is this the alcohol? He hates it, he hates every moment of it. He feels weak and childish and like a _fucking loser_ when all he’s wanted since that night is to feel strong and like he doesn’t need the people who are supposed to care about him because it doesn’t feel like they do. He hates himself for it but he’s so tired and so, so drunk, and too burnt out to do anything but cry until he falls asleep on the floor.

He wakes up the next morning and is immediately filled with shame and rage. He doesn’t remember much of what he was thinking while he was crying but his room stinks with evidence of his weakness and his eyes are dry with more evidence yet. He’s in an even worse mood than usual, not only from his self-loathing thoughts but his abused body and brain protesting his every move. He leaves without a word to anyone, with the bin liner knotted up tight in his bag, hoping to god it doesn’t leak before he can dump it in a trashcan on the way to school. He does not need to deal with that today. 

His friends see his obviously-hungover look and exclaim heartily as they give him playful punches and clap him on the back and ask how it was. He brags that he drank the whole bottle and feels like shit with a grin, and leaves out the rest, enjoying their whoops of comradery. It all feels worth it as he smiles cockily, feeling like at least for the time being he owns the hallway he’s walking down. He’s shown them that he’s not the little pussy kid of the group anymore – maybe it’ll all calm down now that they’ve seen he’s not afraid of breaking the law. 

_God_ , he doesn’t want to do it again though, he really doesn’t want to go through last night again.

For a little while afterwards Jacob’s friends ease up on him a bit and he doesn’t feel like he has to skip so many classes or stay out so late to prove anything or feel better. He’s just glad to not have to smoke so many goddamn cigarettes. 

Oliver breathes a tiny sigh of relief, thinking that perhaps the fever has broken and he and Micol won’t have to do anything drastic in the end. This is why he accepts when Elio invites him to meet a few of his friends at a bar in the city a week later. 

He’s actually pretty excited to finally get to meet some of Elio’s people and meld their lives more. He feels a little bit old and old-fashioned compared to this sophisticatedly bohemian bunch of mostly-under-forties, but he finds himself laughing at their jokes and not really minding when he doesn’t understand their references. As ever, he enjoys watching Elio interact with the people in his life and seeing how he’s different with others. 

It reminds him that he’s supposed to be enjoying his time with Elio and catching up on those twenty new books in his favourite series, and he hasn’t been doing that since he told Jacob. He’s had good reason but everything has kind of been on hold. 

His heart fills with love for Elio as he recognises that Elio hasn’t said a thing, has been his rock without complaint for two months. He’s only pulled out of it when Elio looks up at him expectantly. Someone asked him a question and he’s not heard at all, too wrapped up in his loving thoughts. A laugh erupts around the table as variations of _‘you are so gone on him’_ are called over. Oliver blushes and buries his burning face in Elio’s hair before giving him a soft kiss, amazed to be able to do so openly in front of a group, who collectively _‘aww’_ , setting Oliver off blushing again.

Elio just calls them all saps and deflects the conversation away to give Oliver time to collect himself. God he loves him.

They’re two hours and four wines in when Oliver starts to feel introspective, which naturally in these times turns him sad and guilty.

_I shouldn’t be out here having fun with these people. This isn’t where my life is right now, it’s not right. No one else in my family is having any fun right now and it’s because of me._

Elio must notice his slight frown and distraction. He nudges him while the group talks about something else and whispers.

“You okay?”

Oliver twitches up the side of his mouth unconvincingly and says, “Mi okay.”

“No you’re not,” Elio breathes sympathetically, nudging Oliver’s shoulder again. “Wanna go home?”

Oliver sighs, wishing he wasn’t cutting the evening short, but nods. He’s not going to lie to Elio; he’s never going to lie to Elio again. Wouldn’t be much point if he did anyway, the younger man sees through it all.

They say their goodbyes and promise the enthusiastic group to meet up again soon, and not fifteen minutes later they’re laid out on Elio’s couch, tuning out the TV and cuddling before Oliver has to go back home – he rarely stays the night at the moment.

“Are you torturing yourself?” Elio murmurs.

“A little bit,” Oliver says honestly. “Jacob’s been a little better lately but… I still can’t feel good about feeling good when I know he’s miserable because of me. I don’t want to feel bad but I can’t help but feel selfish and guilty and undeserving when I feel happy like I did tonight.”

Oliver has gotten so much better at expressing himself since they first reconnected, so a thrill of pride underlays Elio’s sadness at his words.

“Jacob will come to terms with everything in his own time,” he reassures before his voice becomes concerned. “You can’t just be miserable until he’s ready to stop torturing you, he’s a teenager. They have stamina with grudges… You’re not sleeping, Oliver, you’re not able to be your best at work, you have no outlet… It’s not a betrayal to be happy sometimes.”

Oliver just holds Elio to him and closes his eyes, hoping his non-answer will be enough. 

But naturally it’s not. 

“When you talk about Jacob you talk about understanding why he feels like he feels. Understanding wanting to feel independent and separate from family and not wanting to give your parents power over you, even though you went about it a different way… Those are things he could use to try to understand that you’re not doing this to hurt him. Why don’t you say those things to Jacob?”

Oliver sighs, long and exhausted. His voice is resigned when he speaks.

“Because I don’t think he could stand to hear anything from me right now. Least of all something trying to relate to him, or even worse – something that actually forces him to feel something. That’s exactly the power he doesn’t want to give me and I don’t know how to get around it.”

Elio lets out a breath, at a loss for how to help the love of his life with words. He gets an idea and disentangles himself from Oliver’s arms as he stands. Oliver frowns at the loss and sits up, confused. 

Elio wanders over to his CD collection and picks one out, placing it in the family’s player and waiting for it to come over their expensive speakers. He holds a hand out to Oliver, gesturing for him to join him as Joe Esposito’s _“Lady, Lady, Lady”_ fills the room. The song is just the right mix of sad, romantic and nostalgic, as Oliver gives Elio an indulgent smile and they begin slow dancing.

“I remember being so jealous when you danced with Chiara to this song. I couldn’t stop looking at you two. I wanted to kill you both.”

“Mm…” Oliver hums, closing his eyes and pulling Elio closer. “Chiara who?” he says with a smile, looking down as Elio’s eyes crinkle with soft laughter.

This is a softer happiness than at the bar. A more meaningful one. Oliver thinks he could stand this happiness. 

This is exactly what he’s done all of this for. This right here… This grounding, shattering love. This warm body beneath his hands and against his chest. This thoughtful, intelligent, playful, bold, mindreading man he’ll never have enough of no matter how long they live. This man he loves just the same whether they’re buying vegetables or slow dancing in the low golden light of his apartment. 

It’s exactly what he’s been needing these past two months. It’s a happiness he can not feel guilty about. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, burying his face in Elio’s hair again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I'd give something sweet at the end to stop it being so _awful_ :D
> 
> Next chapter we finally get to meet Vienne!! And possibly Oliver and Micol finally arrange a get together for everyone to meet everyone bc Matty is keen
> 
> Thoughts, opinions, angry letters! Give them to me below pls :')


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 40,000+ words!
> 
> I wrote this and then worried than some might think it was a bit OOC. But I had a friend who has been reading read it and he said it read right, so fingers crossed.
> 
> It took me a hot second to properly sort out Vienne as a character and figure out who she is and how she would go about things, but I got there in there end I think :) 
> 
> Another case of 'I'm not happy with the chapter but I really want to move on to the things I started writing for', Hope y’all like it enough to keep on keeping on with it

Three weeks later Jacob starts to dip again. Matty desperately wants to meet everyone, so a lunch at Elio’s has been arranged, and the moment Jacob takes a turn can be traced precisely back to when he’s told about it. 

Elio feels truly bad for the Lachmans, but he can’t help but feel his heart lighten a little bit as the lunch looms, because it means Vienne will be home for a few days. She wasn’t able to come home for Hanukkah last year so everyone has missed her dearly – phone calls and email updates are not enough for her family.

Sammy is sitting at the top of the stairs with his MP3 player air-drumming by 4pm, when Vienne isn’t due home ‘til after 4:30. He’s had his band to hang out with since Vienne left but Elio knows he’s missed his sister. They’ve always been two – albeit quite different – peas in a pod. 

At 4:45 the door cracks open and Sammy immediately discards his mp3 to the side of the stair he’s on and stands, ready to greet his oldest partner in crime. He might have made some comment about what the cat dragged in or something but the first thing that comes out of his mouth is:

_“Your hair!”_

His eyes are wide with surprise as Elio and Marzia rush over to peak over the wall above the stairs to see. 

“Is it not good?” Vienne asks, patting her now-blonde curls self-consciously. The slight French lilt she’s always been only too happy to allow into her English from her mother’s speech has only become more pronounced from her time in France. They should have guessed she would let – read: make – it happen.

“No!” Sammy says, laughing and heading down the stairs to take her suitcase, “No it suits you I just wasn’t expecting it.”

Her hair has always been as dark as the rest of the family’s so it’s a shock, but Sammy is right; it does suit her. Vienne slaps her brother on the back hard as he steals her luggage.

“I can do it myself Sammy,” she says, but there’s no heat in it as Sammy races up the stairs. “Did I not tell you when I did it?” she asks to the room.

“No, you didn’t,” Marzia says warmly embracing her daughter and kissing both her cheeks as the French are wont to do. She pulls back and pulls on a few of her only daughter’s golden curls. “It looks beautiful _ma cherie.”_

“I wouldn’t have recognised you,” Elio says affectionately, also hugging her and giving the French greeting.

“Honestly I expected you to be glowing and floating off the ground from what Sammy said about you and Oliver,” Vienne laughs, before remembering that things aren’t so good for them right now. “Though I suppose things have been difficult more recently.”

Elio appreciates his daughter’s sympathy but now isn’t the time for dealing with that.

“For now let’s just enjoy that you’re back for a few days – you’ll get to see it all for yourself tomorrow.”

Vienne makes a face. “Ah _ouais_ , that’s going to be fun.”

“I think you’ll get along really well with Oliver, Micol and Matty. It’s only Jacob who will hate it all…” Elio’s tone is regretful, but it’s out of his hands until tomorrow. “Oliver should be over for a bit tonight after work, so you’ll meet him first.”

Vienne nods openly, fine to withhold her verdict on it all.

“You jetlagged or are you good to stay up?” Sammy asks as he returns from the room, using a singing, coaxing tone on his next words. “I bought The Matrix.”

“Trinity.” They say in unison, grinning at one another and nodding.

“Yeah I’m up for it; even _I_ get sick of artsy French films after a few months,” Vienne says, already on her way to the couch where they both start pushing the cushions onto the floor to sit on. “We should watch Scream when it gets dark.”

“Oh, _absolument,”_ Sammy grins. He looks over his shoulder in his ministrations and says “Could you make—” 

But Elio is already on it. “Yep,” he calls cheerfully as he gathers the ingredients to make popcorn. 

He loves seeing his family all back together again, sharing a warm look with Marzia as she goes to the fridge to grab a bottle of beer for each of her children. Marzia bought the beer earlier in the day, knowing the twins would want to continue their popcorn-beer-and-movies tradition, which they’ve done about once a season since they were seventeen. 

It’s long overdue, with Vienne being away for university.

Elio loves being able to give his children little things like this the way his parents did. They’ve never had anyone like Mafalda so he’s only too happy to let the twins have their fun every now and then, fetching things for them so they don’t have to get up. 

Part of him wonders if Oliver would squint at him a little bit for letting his children start drinking so early and then giving them such easy access to alcohol now, but Elio grew up drinking diluted wine for almost as long as he could remember and then drank it straight at dinner with his parents most nights from when he was around sixteen… America’s drinking age has always confused him, especially since he’s had two children to take care of since well before he was of legal drinking age in modern America.

 _Oliver doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on though if he thinks it’s odd,_ he thinks with a nostalgic huff of laughter as he pours kernels into the pot. _Our whole torrid affair happened when I was seventeen, and we got_ wasted _in Rome..._

Elio takes the art of popcorn-making for this tradition very seriously so he tries his best to tune out the easy bickering and play-fighting the twins never outgrew - it’s always made him long for siblings of his own though, even though he seriously doubts he would have actually made a very good brother... He feels like in many ways he has been the quintessential only-child; doted on and precocious... he likes having the attention of those he loves - he’s not ashamed of it, and he refuses to be.

The twins are a bowl of popcorn, two beers, and most of ‘The Matrix’ through their tradition when Oliver knocks.

Still not over the thrill of Oliver arriving at his apartment, Elio leaves Marzia at the table and bounds down the stairs to greet him with a beaming smile at the door. 

“Evening, Professor.”

“Oh god, don’t call me that.” Oliver groans, giving his dark haired love a kiss.

“Doesn’t do it for you?” Elio says with laughter in his voice as he immediately pulls Oliver up the stairs by the hand, excited to show him off to Vienne even just for a quick introduction. He really is proud to have Oliver as his partner, his twin soul… Elio doesn’t have a problem with self-esteem by any stretch of the imagination but every day he feels that he’s lucky to have his Oliver.

“It absolutely doesn’t.”

“Too many traumatic memories of lusty undergrads trying it on for size?” he grins at the top of the stairs.

“Less than you would think. But it’s still a no to ‘Professor’, for me.”

“Well, we’ll discuss it later,” he says mock-seriously, adjusting Oliver’s collar the way the wife who will definitely get her way in a movie might.

“ _Salut_ Oliver,” Marzia calls from the table where she and Elio had been chatting when Oliver arrived, giving a little wave. He returns it before Elio gestures to where Vienne and Sammy are lounging on the floor in front of the couch. Sammy greets Oliver and gets up as the movie pauses, taking his chance to go to the bathroom.

“Vienne, Oliver. Oliver, Vienne.”

“ _Enchanté_ Oliver,” she says, standing and coming over to shake his hand, properly. Her eyes seem to study him, subtly but inquisitively. Elio knows she probably has about a million questions because she’s interested in everything, but she’s more likely to try to discern the answers through observation than to directly ask, especially upon first meeting.

“Lovely to meet you,” Oliver says, unsure how to interact with Elio’s daughter beyond hello. Meeting Sammy was unexpected and moved so quickly he didn’t really need to think about how to go about it – and Sammy is just so open and easy, it’s difficult to be uncomfortable around him. From what he’s heard Vienne is a little more reserved so he hopes Elio will help.

“ _Tu es très grand_ ,” she notes in an uncharacteristically blunt moment, widening her eyes for a moment. Oliver can piece together what she’s said from having been tall in many foreign countries over the course of his life.

“ _Oui, je suis,”_ he jokes, instantly feeling incredibly lame for it. She seems surprised again, exclaiming.

“ _Tu parles français, Oliver?”_

“He doesn’t, he’s just clever,” Elio jumps in, smiling warmly up at Oliver who feels his cheeks heat.

“Well I’ll try not to slip into it, but it’s habit after being away so long,” Vienne explains to Oliver.

Elio sighs dramatically, leaning his head on Oliver’s shoulder and looking up at him. “We’re losing her to that accursed country.”

“You don’t like France?” Oliver asks, surprised by this information.

Vienne’s slight air of reserve disappears as she and Marzia give Elio shit-eating smirks and he groans. 

“You get the gender of the word _croissant _wrong _one goddamn time_ and you can never go back to the bakery _ever again.”_ Vienne and Marzia’s laughter fills the room, any tension at a first meeting forgotten. __

____

“It was _not_ just one time,” Marzia calls through her laughter.

____

“Whatever, they fucking _remember_ , so judgemental…” Elio grumbles, though he doesn’t entirely mean it. Vienne seems to be at ease as she heads to the fridge, gesturing to it with her thumb.

____

“I was just going to get Sammy and I another beer, do you want one?”

____

“Yeah, that’d be great, actually,” he responds, looking down to Elio for a cue on whether they’re going to keep talking or just go about their nights. But Elio isn’t looking at him, he’s rolling his eyes and heading towards the kitchen as well, dragging Oliver with him. 

____

“You mean you were just about to ask me to get you one,” he ribs good-naturedly before Vienne joins the joke.

____

“ _Mais oui, papa._ But we can discuss the terms of your serfdom during tradition time when we don’t have a guest.”

____

At that Elio does look at Oliver with a genuine, loving smile, placing two hands upon his waist and leaning up to give him a quick but tender kiss. 

____

“Oliver’s not a guest here,” he says, gazing up into his eyes adoringly, showing off.

____

Vienne gags delicately and hands Oliver his beer, taking a sip of her own as she hops up onto the counter, her body language instantly different now that the ice is broken. 

____

“That was so sappy. That was awful to witness,” she deadpans, eyes darting between the two before she lets an easy smile come to her face as Oliver blushes.

____

“Fine,” Elio says, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow, “Then Oliver’s not a guest because he’s done more dishes in that sink than you’ve done in your entire life.”

____

“Which is to say he’s done any, ever,” Marzia chimes in, giving Vienne a look as Sammy returns to the room, though there’s no heat in it.

____

“Oh go call Mafalda if you wanna cry about it,” Vienne says mock-snidely in a way that reminds Oliver a lot of Micol. He wonders if they’ll speak much tomorrow, as Vienne turns to him, hopping off the bench.

____

“It was great to meet you Oliver,” she says genuinely before heading back over to the couch to continue the movie. She calls, “Can you make more popcorn, _papa?”_ over her shoulder as she sits.

____

“Yes, my thankless offspring,” Elio says, giving Oliver a put-upon look before turning to the stove – though Oliver can see he’s in a blissfully domestic mood as he goes about measuring ingredients by memory with a hint of a smile permanently on his face. 

____

Oliver is relieved, taking the moment to think, sitting at the table with Marzia and half-watching the movie with her. 

____

He’s made it through the first interaction barely saying a word, and he’s pretty sure Vienne thinks he’s alright. She wasn’t as proper with him as Elio has led him to expect she might be at first, which he thinks is a good sign… Not that he was worried that it would be overly stiff and formal, but it’s nice to have something to feel optimistic about right now; something easy. Especially the night before everyone meets. 

____

Elio’s relationship with Vienne seems similar to his with Sammy, he thinks as he watches him go over to give his daughter the overflowing bowl of buttery popcorn, which smells amazing – though their humour is definitely a little sharper and more ribbing than Sammy’s, he muses as Elio places the bowl just out of her reach and laughs at her deadpan expression for a moment before toeing it close enough that she can _just_ reach if she stretches. 

____

It’s interesting to Oliver to see all the different ways they’re all similar and different to one another, and he really enjoys learning their close-yet-not-smothering, light-hearted-yet-meaningful family dynamic... It makes his chest warm and his heart fluttery… He can’t help but feel that Elio brings to his life everything that’s been missing for the past twenty years – but it’s like this because it’s been cooking so long by itself. 

____

He wouldn’t change the way anything has happened, he doesn’t think.

____

Except how they told Jacob about everything. That he would change in a heartbeat.

____

____

Later that night after Oliver has left to the sound of Vienne and Sammy cackling at a joke one of them made and after Elio and Marzia have retired for the night, the twins are sitting by the big window talking over a nightcap joint.

____

“I think _maman_ is going to move in with Mark soon,” Sammy comments around a mouthful of smoke.

____

“Hasn’t she already, basically?” Vienne asks, accepting the proffered joint.

____

“Yeah, she kind of has. It’s going to suck when you’re both gone.”

____

“We’re not dying Sammy,” Vienne laughs. Sammy swats her arm playfully, letting her know he’s being serious.

____

“No you’re not, but I already miss you guys and _maman_ will be even more wrapped up with Mark and we’ll have to actually organise family times and you’ll probably want to live in France for like, the rest of your life…”

____

“Speaking of which,” Vienne begins, seeming reluctant, like she doesn’t want to say what she has to say but she’s stumbled upon the right moment to bring it up. “I kind of… like, have a person, in France?”

____

“You stole someone?” Sammy says, pokerfaced. But Vienne isn’t joking.

____

“ _No,_ I have a… her name is Charlotte,” she says exasperatedly, dodging the label she knows he wants her to use.

____

“You have a girlfriend,” Sammy singsongs, teasing his sister, poking her arm. “What happened to Vienne the Heartless who swore the only time she would bother to stick with someone was just in time not to die alone?”

____

“Shut up,” Vienne replies, but she’s laughing, clearly too happy at the thought of being with who she’s with to hold it back in her weed-hazy state.

____

“Why didn’t you say anything in our million calls and emails?” 

____

“Well I didn’t know it was going to be serious until it was, and then I knew you would be like this, you monster.” She still hasn’t stopped laughing.

____

“Oh shut up, you just didn’t want to admit that you’re a closet romantic. But I know you’re all mushy on the inside,” he teases with a self-satisfied grin as he steals the joint back, relighting it. “I bet you buy her flowers every single day and then twist her arm until she swears not to tell anyone.”

____

“I do not!” Vienne exclaims loudly. Loudly enough apparently to wake their _papa_ who exits his room groggily a few seconds later, rubbing his eyes.

____

“What are you two yelling about?” he croaks tiredly.

____

“Vienne has a girlfriend,” Sammy singsongs again, ignoring his sister’s glare.

____

“Oh, that’s nice,” Elio replies, only slightly more awake. He looks like he’s about to say something else when he sniffs the air and crinkles his nose, alert. “Is that weed I smell?”

____

Sammy and Vienne give each other sheepish looks and say “Maaaaybe,” in unison. 

____

Sammy holds it out uncertainly, offering it to his _papa_ with raised, questioning eyebrows. Elio considers for a moment and shrugs, coming over.

____

“It’ll help me get back to sleep,” he defends with an overacted gesture, knowing he doesn’t actually need to explain himself to his children just as they don’t need to explain themselves to him.

____

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the only reason,” Vienne laughs as Elio takes a very long, drawn out drag. Sammy and Vienne give each other fascinated looks as their _papa_ hands it back, still holding the smoke in his lungs. 

____

“You know it’s like, twice as strong as the stuff you guys were smoking in the eighties now, right?” Sammy says sceptically, leaning the joint on the edge of the ashtray.

____

“I did not know that,” Elio replies as he exhales a plume of smoke. “It’s been a while.” He immediately turns around and heads back towards his room, sleepy once again. “Better hope you don’t wake up your _maman,”_ he whispers before closing his door. 

____

He’s right – Marzia wouldn’t be shocked and appalled by any measure, but the Professor certainly wouldn’t be joining her children for a sneaky puff. Immediately after Elio’s door closes his children are giggling by the window again.

____

“We have a very chill dad.”

____

“Yes we do, but you are not changing the subject,” Sammy declares, not distracted despite their activities this evening.

____

“What more is there to say? She was in one of my classes, we hung out at a party, then we kept hanging out. She’s kind of tall and she has brown hair and she only wears her glasses when she can’t find her contacts. And she’s great.” 

Vienne started out flippantly but towards the end it’s clear that she’s really smitten with this girl. Sammy drops his teasing, slapping her arm again to catch her eye so she’ll see his honesty.

____

“I’m really glad for you,” he says, voice genuine. “She must be pretty great, to tie _you_ down.”

____

Vienne just sighs, “She really is.”

____

“Seems to be a lot of it going around,” Sammy observes, looking down onto the street where two lovers are walking past holding hands, completely unaware of the twins’ presence. 

____

Vienne shoots him a kind look that says _cheer up_ and nudges his shoulder. “You’ll find someone.” 

____

Sammy looks thoughtful before speaking again, putting out the joint in the ashtray.

____

“You really should have seen _papa_ the week when he and Oliver weren’t talking... They saw each other again for like, half an hour, cumulatively, after twenty years, and he was…” Sammy frowns, shaking his head as though to clear it. “I don’t know, I’m just glad they’re together again. They really are hideously in love and I want something like that someday. It must be worth it, because one of Oliver’s sons was apparently super chill about it but the other has _really_ not taken it well. He’s pretty lost right now by the way _papa_ relays it.”

____

“I guess it just depends on what you’re like and what your life is like. It’s probably a bad time for him – it’s big news for a high schooler.” Vienne shrugs, introspective for a moment before Sammy speaks again.

____

“We’ve gotta try to be like… cool, or something. Without being in his face. So that even if he hates _papa_ – which it sounds like he will no matter what – at least he might not hate us? That could help.”

____

“We’re cool, we can be cool,” Vienne smiles tiredly, hopping off the ledge and heading to her room. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

____

____

____

Jacob is not happy to find himself in the usurper’s family’s apartment on a Saturday, being forced to meet the family of said usurper because his brother kept whining about it. The food is delicious of course but that’s hardly something special coming from an Italian guy, he tells himself.

____

Casanova isn’t as Italian looking as he expected, nor as pretentiously dressed. He’s pretty good-looking Jacob supposes, but he’s just a guy in a pair of rolled up jeans and a shirt with wavy hair. He doesn’t even have an Italian accent and his piano gigs aren’t nearly as cool as Matty clearly thinks they are as he asks about them. He doesn’t even play guitar; it’s never going anywhere interesting.

____

That _is what my dad is fucking everything up for?_

____

Matty has clearly met this Elio guy – which, when? – so he and Jacob’s mom don’t need to be introduced. It’s only Jacob being forced to shake his hand, so he grunts a hello and then walks away from his father’s disappointed face to sit at the end of the table as far from Elio as possible, between Jacob’s mother and his brother. 

____

_At least he didn’t try to kiss my fucking cheeks like he did with mom. Dude will probably drop my dad for my mom next, Jesus._

____

He’s got to admit though, it’s… not the worst thing in the world, to meet Marzia and Vienne. They’re so cultured and beautiful. Nothing like Casanova. They probably don’t even want to be there either. 

____

Jacob cannot understand how this random guy convinced someone as beautiful and sophisticated as _Marzia: the French, Tenured Literature Professor_ , to sleep with him – he feels for her, having her life dictated by Casanova’s choices, forced to see him all the time for the rest of her life because she made one mistake as a teenager not much older than Jacob is.

____

He _is_ grateful that the mistake was made in that moment, though, because he’s not going to lie to himself and pretend he doesn’t think Vienne is the most alluring woman on the face of the earth with her blonde curls and French clothes. Because she clearly is... at least to him. 

____

She’s the first (pretty much) French person he’s met, other than her mother mere seconds before, and he really struggles not to look at her all the time throughout the lunch. Every time she slips into French and then repeats herself in English when Sammy gives her a nudge, Jacob falls a little bit more in love with the idea of _Vienne Perlman._

____

Vienne must take after her mother – or her _maman,_ as she so beautifully refers to her as, her mouth expertly curling around the foreign syllables. She’s got this French lilt to her American accent that Jacob can’t help but prick his ears up to hear every time she opens her mouth, though he does his best to hide it. 

____

He’s a little embarrassed by how much he likes and admires her but it’s not like he has to talk to her after her greeting. He can just be an observing loser on the side lines.

____

Sammy seems pretty cool too, and not really European like his parents. He calls his parents _maman et papa_ but he’s pretty damn American otherwise. Jacob even hears him playing a few Nirvana songs quietly on the floor in the corner as the adults chat among themselves, getting to know each other better – Matty joins in of course, precocious little shit. 

____

Maybe Sammy is just as bored by their chatter as Jacob is… maybe there’s some normalcy going around even here.

____

The sun starts to make the shadows grow longer, and Jacob’s heart damn near skips a beat when Vienne joins Sammy to sing a few melodic French songs. Her voice is soft and breathy – Jacob can’t tell if it’s because she’s trying to be quiet but he thinks it’s beautiful. 

____

He can’t think about how much he detests Casanova’s presence when he’s focused on hearing Vienne’s smooth, breathy voice. 

____

_Thank you Sammy Perlman,_ he thinks, _or I might never have heard this._

____

And then, _God I am such a nerd with girls, I’ve barely said a word to her and I’ll be thinking about her for months,_ he groans internally, wishing he was cool enough to have a chance with someone like Vienne. 

____

He wants to go over and talk to them but he’s one part compelled, two parts intimidated, and one part spiteful against his dad. So the ‘no’s have it in him and he just sits back at the corner of the table pretending to read, too busy listening raptly to focus much on how he’s supposed to be hating every part of being in Casanova’s den.

____

____

Everyone accepted that the whole affair was going to be touchy and difficult before they agreed to attend, given the general mood post-reveal… but ultimately, with Jacob caught up in his besotted, embarrassed thoughts, the whole thing went much more smoothly than anyone expected. Jacob didn’t spit any spiteful venom at Elio, Matty got all the introductions he wanted, and Marzia and Micol even had an hour-long animated conversation about the merits of well-researched science fiction…

____

As Elio and Oliver part ways, finally giving one another a deep kiss with Jacob tucked away out of sight in the car reading, it feels in that moment like it all might work out someday soon – there’s still a ways to go with Jacob and nothing is set in stone, but their worlds have collided more fully today than they ever have before, and there was no tragedy. No one stormed off, no one shouted, and no one cried or hurt anyone today.

____

After almost three months of anxiety and guilt, it seems the clouds might finally start lifting.

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of my favourite planned bits are yet to come so don't give up on me just yet! :')
> 
>   
> Btw Elio's funny bakery experience was pretty much exactly taken from [this](https://youtu.be/FIqVY1SwXls?t=71) Paul Taylor joke. He’s very funny and you should watch him.  
> And [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J76pYuAsIfM) is the kind of song I imagine Vienne singing while Sammy plays guitar (yes I know it's kinda sexy for family time and it’s French Canadian and not 100% French, but whatever, Jacob ain't know shit and regardless who cares, pretty song)  
> 
> 
> My friend said that the work could benefit from a drawing of Vienne to picture her, so I'm gonna pick a model face and do a drawing for the next chapter!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaalrighty y'all, this is the worst part :') Apologies. Jacob's very confused about what he feels right now and everyone is very tired. I had my friend read it and he said it was worthy so we postin' 😎

It's 7:30pm and Jacob still isn’t home. Matty sits with his parents at the table after dinner, hating how his brother has made everything so awful for everyone when the change could have been something interesting and exciting. He knows his dad is worried about being a good father, and he is one – he just wishes Jacob would act like it.

“Where do you think he goes?” Matty asks, to pass the time. 

“I don’t know,” his father says tiredly, staring at the table with his hands folded. It was jarring to Matty to see his father being happy and animated again when they were talking at Elio’s house, and it’s jarring again to see the return to this new normal now… He forgot how easy things were only a couple of months ago, for a moment.

“I imagine he goes wherever his friends go,” Micol says. “Skate parks, basketball courts, malls, one of their houses…” she trails off, playing with Matty’s curls affectionately and appreciating that at least one of her sons will still accept her touch. 

“He’s being stupid,” Matty mutters, looking down at his hands picking his nails. “Why doesn’t he just get over it? He’s making himself miserable too…” It’s clear in Matty’s voice that while he’s bothered by the way his brother is treating him at school – like he’s the enemy – he also just has a lot of contempt for his brother’s reaction to the change. “It’s not like it was even _that_ big of a shock…”

It occurs to Micol that they’ve never _really_ spoken about it all, in that moment. They’ve all just been hunkering down to wait out the storm. But maybe it’s time to talk more as time runs out on leaving it be.

“Well not everyone is as observant as you Matty,” she explains, “It probably _was_ a huge shock to Jacob. You were extraordinarily understanding with your father and I, so maybe you can be as understanding with Jacob while he needs it the most. I know he’s not been very nice to you and you’ve been _so good_ about not biting back,” Micol hugs her son to her side for a moment as he listens, to fully convey how proud she is of him for how he’s dealing with everything before she continues. 

“You’ve been very understanding in your feelings towards it, but even if they’re less controlled, Jacob’s feelings about it all are just as complex as yours – we can’t wait very much longer for him to sort it out, but he’s just trying to deal with his own feelings as best he can… can you understand?”

“I guess…” he says, pleased at his mother’s acknowledging praise but still annoyed at how Jacob is disrupting everything. He knows he’s upset that his parents are dictating his life, but he’s been dictating _everyone’s_ lives for months now… Matty supposes he hasn’t really _had_ to control his reaction to it all, but Jacob’s behaviour still feels selfish and juvenile to him.

Not a minute later the phone rings and Oliver gets up to answer with a frown – who would be calling right now? Elio is filling in for a sick orchestra pianist tonight and Micol already spoke to Michael on the phone less than an hour ago.

“Oliver Lachman speaking.”

“Mr Lachman? We have your son Jacob at the Queens Place Mall; security picked him up trying to steal a skateboard. Are you able to pick him up?” 

Oliver’s first reaction is protectiveness for his son. 

His second reaction is exhaustion. 

His third reaction is anger, because he and Micol have given Jacob all the space in the world and time to come to terms with the changes in his life, and at almost every turn he’s proven to be more interested in being churlish and difficult than in living even his own life. Oliver has related to his son wanting to be separate from his family, but this… Oliver never did anything so stupid it could potentially jeopardise his future like this. 

He’ll be lucky if they let him off with just a warning.

He sets his jaw and says, as calmly as he can, that he’ll be there to pick Jacob up as soon as possible before hanging up without another word.

“Who was that?” Micol asks, wide eyed and alert at Oliver’s words.

Oliver closes his eyes and takes a moment to stare with what he knows are hard eyes.

“That was a security officer from Queens Place Mall,” he says, done. “I have to drive over there now to pick up our son, who has been caught trying to steal a skateboard.”

Micol just pinches the bridge of her nose as Matty mutters about how _‘of course he has..._ ’

“We have to do something. Something has to change. Tonight,” Micol asserts. “Skipping classes is one thing but he can’t start getting into real trouble like this. This is the line.”

“This is _so_ beyond the line,” Oliver says darkly as he retrieves the keys. “We should have done something serious the second things started going south again.”

He leaves the house, caught between tension and resignation, without another word. The next thing he says is to the security officer he spoke with on the phone, introducing himself and thanking him for his understanding about the situation.

“Oh this is nothing Mr Lachman. We deal with much worse all the time… probably don’t say anything like that to your son though. He’s seemed pretty damn nervous and regretful which is usually a sign they won’t do it again – at least not here – but I’ve seen situations like these spiral before. Now is definitely the time to start using a heavier hand if you haven’t been…” he says compassionately, before his tone becomes more serious. “He seems like a good kid beneath it all, I really don’t want to be seeing him again.”

“You don’t need to worry about that sir, he’s not going to be anywhere other than school or home for a very long time.” 

Oliver appreciates the man’s understanding, but he thinks he’s finally, finally at the point where he’s more frustrated at Jacob’s behaviour than he is guilty.

Now is the time for serious consequences and discipline.

 _‘Lessons from raising a kid in the Italian countryside feel kind of irrelevant in New York’_ ; he recalls his earlier words. He’s appreciated Elio’s point of view and it worked for Matty but now is not the time.

Neither Jacob nor Oliver says a word as they walk to the car. Jacob can see his father working his jaw and gripping the steering wheel tight as he drives. 

For the first time since he heard the news, Jacob feels truly uncertain about everything. He doesn’t feel angry right now. His friends said it was awesome, but… was it? Jacob honestly just feels sick about the whole thing. There’s never been real trouble with his little rebellion until now and he hates it. He doesn’t feel like a rebel, he feels guilty and stupid and ashamed.

His friends laughed and yelled out how much of a badass, how much of a legend he was, as they ran away while Jacob was caught. And all after they goaded him into trying to lift the skateboard in the first place by asking if he was _‘gay like his dad’_ when he said he didn’t want to… in reality Jacob knows he hated hearing them talk about his dad that way, knows he doesn’t really think what they said was okay or cool at all... He doesn’t like them talking about his dad that way – it’s one thing for him to hate his parents, it’s another thing entirely for them to talk shit, and especially like that. 

He feels _spiteful_ , he doesn’t want to be like… _emancipated_. He doesn’t want to never talk to his parents ever again…

He still wants to be a part of his family again when he’s done being upset.

But he doesn’t feel he can say any of that. His father looks too angry on the car ride and if he expected his mother to be a sympathetic voice in the room as they cross the threshold he’s sorely mistaken because Micol has had time to stew.

Matty must have been asked to go to bed, Jacob thinks, because there’s no way his nosy little brother would choose not to be in the room for this.

Jacob is ready to apologise but Micol speaks before he can, as he and his father walk into the dining room.

“What the _fuck_ were you thinking?” Micol asks, her voice thrumming with contained rage. Jacob knows he’s screwed if his mom is swearing. “What could _possibly_ have compelled you to do something that _stupid?”_

Jacob frowns, searching for words, bothered that his mother has found the exact word for how he feels – stupid. Stupid, and scared. What a wonderfully humiliating combination. 

“I understand that you’re angry with us, you can be mad at us,” Oliver says with a dubious look in his eyes and a set brow. “But why would you risk your own future with something dumb like that? You are _so_ lucky they’re letting you go with just a warning. You decided to steal a two hundred dollar skateboard when we’ve been asking what you wanted for your birthday for a goddamn _month?!”_

His voice cracks through the room and Jacob flinches. He’s torn between feeling genuinely chastised because he knows he’s done wrong, and feeling resentful that his father is trying to make him feel that way when he already does. They don’t need to chastise him, he thinks, he knows he’s been stupid. But they press on.

“Well?” Micol asks, arms crossed and eyes wide with censure. “What do you have to say?” 

Jacob stammers for a moment, his face clearly showing the battle between his most resentful and most ashamed instincts. “I—" he begins. “I don’t know. My friends kind of made me—”

“Oh, your _friends_ made you?” Micol doesn’t try to keep the furious contempt out of her voice. “Great friends you’ve got there Jacob, it really sounds like _that’s_ the horse to back in this race. They sound like great kids worth keeping around.”

In that moment of sarcasm Jacob’s uncertainty disappears as his face screws up with petulant rage.

“Well I wouldn’t have to try so hard to keep them around like that if you hadn’t taken away this one stable thing here when they were starting to pressure me,” he spits. “I was _good_ for _you guys_ before and they all laughed at me for it but I held back then because I knew you cared.”

“Oh, you _know_ we still care or you wouldn’t be able to hurt us,” Micol replies, her voice no less reproving or resounding than when she began. “You hurt us because we care, and you do it on purpose.” 

“You’re responsible for your own actions, Jacob.” Oliver’s his tone is free to be quieter – more resigned and disappointed – while Micol delivers the ire they believe Jacob needs right now. 

“If that’s how it is with your friends then you’re not going to be seeing your friends very much anymore,” Micol says.

“You’re making this something bigger than it is! I didn’t even want to do it, I’m not going to do it again! How are you going to stop me from seeing people? Are you going to put a tracking device on me?” Jacob replies, rolling his eyes sarcastically at the end.

“You are _grounded,_ Jacob.” Micol says, incredulity and finality in her voice, irritated that her son thinks he can challenge her after this incident. “You are going to school and then you are coming back home and that is it for you for the foreseeable future. And you are talking to a counsellor as soon as we can get you one because this is just… it’s just not acceptable. We’ll see about what else is going to happen tomorrow but this isn’t going any further.”

“Counselling? _Grounded?”_ Jacob says incredulously. “I haven’t been _grounded_ since I was ten!”

“Yeah, well if you act like a ten year old then you get treated like a ten year old, Jacob,” Micol says factually, not backing down.

“How are you going to _make_ me come home after school?” her son replies with a mocking brow, but Micol won’t be fought on this. 

Her eyes are wide as she replies, telling her son that if he wants to do crazy things his parents will show him crazy right back.

“We will inform the school if we have to. I will pick you up every afternoon and we will arrange for a teacher to escort you to the car every single day if we have to, because _this is not who we are_. We will make this as embarrassing as you need it to be but you are not seeing those boys if this is the kind of behaviour they think is _cool_ when they’re not at school, and if you’re stupid enough to let them convince you to do it. We will move you to a different school if we have to. Do not for one second think that I wouldn’t do that for your future.”

Micol’s tone is halfway between threat and promise by the end – halfway between anxiety and menace – but Jacob only hears the last part.

In his mind it’s one thing for him to have doubts about his friends to work through in his own head, and to decide this on his own… it’s quite another thing for his parents to dictate to him that he can’t see his friends because _they’ve_ decided so, and to try to uproot this last thing he’s been trying to keep.

He feels his uncertainty slip away, wrath sliding into its place. It’s silent for a moment but his eyes are hard as ice as he replies despite the futile act he knows it to be.

“Threaten whatever you want. You’re not going to tell me what to do.”

“Yes we are Jacob, we’re your parents – that’s part of our job,” Oliver says firmly to his son’s now-raised eyebrows. “You have lost the right to decide about this right now.”

Jacob wants to scream and he wants to cry but he can’t do either of those things. He’s just looking for a way to hurt his father, to be brutal, to have an effect on him even if he knows his dad ultimately does get to say who he sees after something like today… 

He just goes for the only thought he knows will shut everything down.

“You’re just like your own fucking tyrant father. You pretend you’re different but you’re just as shitty a father or this wouldn’t be happening. I’m going to get the hell out of here the second I turn eighteen _just_ like you did and it will be because you are exactly like him.”

…The words cut Oliver deeper than his son can ever know.

The thought of being compared to his father after working so hard to try to raise his sons right is just… He stares at the table for a moment, the utter silence and stillness telling him that Jacob already knows he’s said something he can’t ever take back. 

Oliver knows his son already feels bad for what he’s said – that he was just grabbing blindly for whatever would hurt his father the most in a moment of cornered lashing out… but he can’t say nothing to it. His face remains blank as he replies.

“My father abused his children until one of them killed himself. That is not the same thing.” 

Silence descends upon the Lachmans’ dining room following Oliver’s words. Oliver knows his son is already frantically sorry for what he’s said and part of him wants to comfort him because he knows his son didn’t know just how terrible his childhood was, or what happened to Don... He doesn’t want him to feel bad forever about something he said in a desperate, futile rage before he could think, after months of looking for ways to feel powerful in his life…

But has to tell Jacob that he forgives him later. He can’t do it tonight. Jacob needs to feel for what he said now. He needs to understand this regret. It’s not something Oliver can spare him… If Oliver has learned anything from all of this it’s that sometimes people just need to feel bad to move forward.

“Go to your room, please,” he says eventually, quietly. 

Jacob doesn’t say a word and Oliver doesn’t look at him as he shuffles up the stairs, knowing his face is burning with shame and his shoulders are slumped. 

The two tired parents sit there for a long time before Micol speaks, rubbing her face and then holding her hands folded in front of her lips.

“Do you think that was it?” she asks, pensively. “Do you think that was bad enough that he’ll stop, and understand?”

Oliver’s lip trembles for a moment before he composes himself and speaks.

“I don’t know. I know he didn’t mean it, and I know I’m nothing like my father, but…” he sucks in a long, shaky breath, but no tears fall. “I wish he hadn’t said that. For both of us.”

Micol doesn’t have the words to comfort her husband, so she just moves over to embrace him. He’s not crying but he’s obviously not fine by any measure. She senses the tears have yet to be ready to come, and that Elio can help him be ready for whatever happens tomorrow.

“I think you should be with Elio tonight,” Micol murmurs into Oliver’ shoulder, knowing that it helps Oliver to be reminded of the reason they’ve done what they’ve done – which isn’t to say that he forgets for a second how much he loves Elio, but he always seems strengthened after their times together.

Things are going well with Michael, but Micol often wishes she had something that doubtless and affirming to lean on recently.

“Can you call him and let him know I’ll be over?” Oliver asks, mind immediately going to the practical while his emotions are temporarily suspended. “The performance should be done soon, if it isn’t already... I think, I don’t know what time it is.”

“Yes, of course I’ll call him,” Micol assures sympathetically. “Just go.”

Twenty minutes later Oliver is mechanically opening the Perlmans’ door with the key Elio gave him. He walks impassively up the stairs and pauses at the top. Before he notices what’s happening Elio is with him, with grounding hands on his biceps guiding him to his room past an eerily silent Sammy who stares with sad, confused eyes. 

He doesn’t know what’s happening but he knows it is not a normal night.

Micol is absolutely right. Not a word is spoken, not a sound is made, until Elio has Oliver wrapped up in his arms as best he can manage with his size, beneath his soft, heavy duvet. A few minutes pass while Elio waits for him to speak. And then he lets himself cry.

Elio doesn’t think he’s ever heard Oliver cry quite like this, the sobs stifled and stuttering, but true.

“Why does it have to be this way right now?” Oliver whispers, not wanting even the other Perlmans to hear his pain. “I’m _so tired,_ why do we have to pay like this to be together? It’s not fair, none of this is fair…”

He sounds so bone-tired as he cries within the safety of his twin soul’s arms, in the safety of his bed. Elio’s heart squeezes at Oliver’s words, because he has the same questions for the universe, and no answers to give. 

Neither of them deserves this, and Oliver least of all – he hopes Oliver knows that, truly feels that.

“Whatever he said, he didn’t mean it,” he reassures, wanting to cement the thought before the opposite notion burrows too far into Oliver’s thoughts. Micol only said that Jacob said something bad, but Elio knows he can’t have meant it – not truly.

“I know he didn’t mean it,” Oliver whispers, assuaging Elio’s fears. “I saw it right away. I forgave him before he even finished saying it.” His voice turns anxious and frightened next, though the tears have stopped. 

“We’ve been giving him so much space to play the long game and give him autonomy and it hasn’t done anything to make him understand until now… but I think tonight, when we finally laid down the law and told him we were going to treat him like a child if he was going to act like one… I think tonight was when he needed us to let him think about his choices by himself. He seemed guilty and uncertain and then we yelled at him and he went off.”

Elio doesn’t know what to say to help. Parents never know if they’ve made the right choice; they doubt how they handle every situation that doesn’t go perfectly. He wasn’t there – he doesn’t know how he thinks they should have dealt with it. 

He just keeps holding Oliver, rubbing his back soothingly as he continues, more calm now.

“I hate feeling like I have to punish him, I hate not being on his side, I hate having to filter my words with him after I decided I was going to be more honest in my life, I hate…” he trails off, at a loss for words. His search for the right ones allows him to open his eyes and take a few deep breaths. 

“I just hate this. I hate all of this. Everything I was scared of is happening and the only thing I don’t hate right now is what it’s all for. You and my family are the only things that I love more than I hate this…” Oliver looks up, face still damp but eyes clear. “I love you. I love you so fucking much. I need you.”

Oliver seems to be affirming himself as he speaks, his tone gradually shifting from exhausted despair to deep need.

“I need you,” Oliver repeats himself, craning his head from where Elio is holding him near his chest to kiss his jaw, his chin, and finally his mouth. He kisses him with a hunger, but there’s something controlled about it that makes Elio think it’s grounding rather than distracting or deflecting…

This is something healing, not compounding the injury.

When Oliver enters Elio that night, face to face, with him straddling his hips as he sits on the edge of the bed, he’s completely present. It isn’t an escape from reality when he lets Elio lick the salty tracks of his tears. It’s catharsis and grounding reassurance. He’s looking into Elio’s eyes in the dark through thrusts and stifled moans and Elio is looking back with understanding, connecting eyes. 

He’s holding his Elio’s waist in his hands as though to remind himself that he’s is real, while Elio’s arms hooked around his neck remind Oliver that he’s real too. 

Things won’t fall apart. Nothing is lost forever yet. Nothing permanent has happened.

His grief is gone for the time being as they lay back to sleep – the morning will come and they will all just… keep going. His grounded assurance will likely disappear, but they’ll all just keep on going. Because what else can they do?

Meanwhile Jacob spends the night curled up in his bed, grappling with waves of self-loathing. His father didn’t deserve what he said to him tonight. 

_He’s not a bad father. I’m a bad son and that’s not his fault. He did his best and he did a good job and I threw it in his face. Am I a bad person, if I can just say something like that with barely a thought beyond ‘that will hurt’?_

_I didn’t know dad’s father was that bad, I didn’t know anyone killed themselves, I didn’t know anything about dad’s childhood, but I still said it. Mom was right, I have been hurting them on purpose but I didn’t want this. I’ve just been so fucking scared and angry…_

Jacob’s thoughts are self-pitying in a few instances but they build to a storm of hate over the night as he sits in his room trying nothing to distract himself. There’s no song, no friend, no inane game that could stop this steamroller of emotions.

He hates himself, and he hates the world for making him feel like he felt, to say what he said to someone with his dad’s past, not knowing how much damage his words could do. Just shooting blindly in the dark for any target that would hurt… His dad could be anywhere feeling anything right now and it’s because Jacob was angry at himself. 

His thoughts are nonsensical, circular, and they go around and around all night.

His chest is hollow but it’s also filled with lead. His father is the victim of his words and also the accursed cause of them. His friends are his non-familial saviours and also his snickering oppressors. He wants to rush to his family and beg for forgiveness but he also wants to deny anything he said was hurtful but he also wants to just run away until it feels like none of it even happened and he doesn’t even have a family. Jacob hates Matty’s great grades he shows off and his friends that accept him and his easy acceptance of the changes in his life, but he desperately wants all of those things for himself. He wishes he could forget that terrible moment when the store guard caught him, could forget his father’s disappointment, his mother’s anger…

He doesn’t have the tools to express his thoughts or to make sense of the contradictory things he’s thinking and feeling. All the framework that’s protected him from his feelings is coming down but it’s too messy, it hurts too much and he needs something to hold him together and keep him sane, as how he truly feels about everything that’s happened in the last few months comes down on him. So he tries to push the framework back up even though the illusion is broken and he’s soberly admitted to himself that he doesn’t like what he’s been doing, doesn’t want his parents to hurt…

He doesn’t sleep until 3am and even then he just tosses and turns restlessly, his dreams filled with regret.

Jacob doesn’t know what he thinks or how he feels anymore. He wishes none of it had ever happened. 

He wants to go back a few years and find a way to keep his parents in love. He wants to go back to fourth grade when he started hanging out with all of his friends and choose different ones to grow up with and value. He wants to go back to when he was little and his mom and dad would cuddle up with him in their bed when he didn’t want to take his afternoon nap, because if they wanted to do it, he wanted to do it too…

How did things change so much?

When Jacob opens his eyes to sunlight streaming through his curtains hardly a moment has passed before his guilty, ashamed feelings return. He doesn’t go down for breakfast, he just stays in his room doing schoolwork he’s missed until lunchtime, cursing himself for how far behind he’s let himself get. Even at lunch he just quietly makes his way down to the kitchen after everyone else has eaten and quickly makes himself a sandwich before heading back up.

Towards dinner Jacob heads downstairs to try to watch something on TV to distract himself from the increasingly irritating feeling of wanting to crawl out of his skin.

He’s watching some dumb crime show while his parents make dinner – no one has said a word about last night yet – when Matty starts playing around on the piano, which is something he only started doing after Elio. It grates on Jacob’s nerves but he holds his tongue because it’s quiet and he doesn’t want his parents to think he isn’t feeling remorseful. 

But Matty only seems to get louder and louder and the rain that’s been drizzling all day is picking up, making it harder to hear… And it’s not _Matty_ Jacob said what he said to after all, and he’s been practicing this same stupid Star Wars song for three months and he still can’t play ten seconds of it right and Jacob is so fucking tired from staying up all night hating himself and the world and he just snaps, after a particularly loud, dissonant fuck up.

“Can you just give it a fucking rest, you are so annoying! I’m obviously trying to watch something and you’re just playing over it! You’re never going to be able to play two notes in a row of that stupid song right, so can you just _give up already?_ Christ.”

Matty pauses for barely a second before he speaks, pissed off and unaware of the situation except that Jacob fucked up bad last night and he and his parents fought, and now Jacob is yelling at him for what seems like next to nothing like he owns the place.

“You know what?” he says sharply. “Mom and dad told me to be nice to you because like, _your feelings_ or whatever, but you are just such a fucking _clown_ sometimes Jacob. Who’s the nerd, who’s the little fucking _bitch,_ Jacob? The one who moved on like an adult and dealt with it or the one who tanked his grades and started being shitty to the people who cared, and got like, _arrested_ or whatever last night?” 

Matty knows he’s not doing any good but once he’s started talking he finds he can’t stop working himself up and spewing everything he’s wanted to say for weeks now. 

“You’re causing all of your own problems and nobody will say anything to you about it because they think you’re going to break if they do or that somehow you’ll grow up if you figure it out on your own or something. But you’re not going to, because you’re a big dumb self-absorbed meathead with big dumb meathead friends who don’t like you for who you are, and who you’re just too insecure to leave.”

Jacob stands up and crowds his brother, hoping his threatening body language will make him stop talking because he’s too angry and stung now to deal with what Matty has said. He’s only just started trying to untangle the balled up string his feelings have become, and having his little brother tighten the knot by pulling on the ends – saying everything he’s thought about himself all through the sleepless night – is too much.

But Matty doesn’t know when to stop talking sometimes.

“Yeah, sure. _Loom_ over me big man. I’m terrified,” he scoffs with a shake of his head, looking Jacob up and down in a purposeful, judging assessment. “You don’t have anything but your anger, do you? You are so fucking pathetic right now, and you’re making it everyone else’s problem.” 

Jacob’s eyes must warn Matty that he’s said too much, because when he sees them widen he immediately bolts towards the kitchen where his parents are emerging to see what all the fuss is about. He gets about three feet before Jacob tackles him to the ground. 

Jacob doesn’t know what he thought he was going to do – he’s not actually going to punch his little brother, especially not after yesterday. In the end he finds himself just holding Matty down and yelling, _“Take it back, take it back!"_

Oliver is on him in a second, pulling him off of Matty and shoving him across the room, standing between his sons with warning eyes which tell them not to move a muscle.

“What the hell was that?”

Neither son says a thing. Matty look unrepentant, crossing his arms and looking to the side bitterly. 

But Jacob is filled with shame. He was angry at Matty, not his dad. He never wanted his dad involved in this at all; he’s done enough to cause him pain in the last twenty-four hours. He definitely doesn’t want to see his sons fighting right now – Jacob is reminded anew of what his father said about one of his siblings killing themselves.

It’s the first time he’s seen him since he said it and it’s hitting him afresh.

He wants to run away from it all – run away from Matty’s judgement, from his parents, from school, from his friends, from his guilt, and shame, and hatred for the world. It feels like the only way he’ll ever escape these feelings is to be as far away from this as possible. 

Fuck all of this. He’s screwed up too much to be here right now, he needs to get away. He doesn’t know where he’s going to go but he can’t be here anymore right now.

Jacob looks between his two parents for a few moments before he bolts for the door and just runs, heedless of the cold or the pelting rain outside. He runs like he can outrun how he feels, faster than he knew he could, and he’s gone.

After Jacob has run and it’s just Matty and his parents, Matty looks appropriately contrite. 

“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” he admits in a quiet voice. “I told him he didn’t have anything except his anger and that his friends don’t even like him and that he was pathetic and made it everyone else’s problem…”

Micol just pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Why did you do that?” she sighs. 

“He told me to give up trying to learn _Binary Sunset_ because I’m never going to be able to play it.”

“Things are very delicate right now, Matty…” Micol begins, but Oliver interrupts, shaking himself from his thinking and frowning before walking over to grab his keys. 

“It doesn’t matter who said what now, I need to go find him before he gets too far away.”

“Is that a good idea?” Micol asks, questioning all their parenting choices lately. “Trying to drag him back might just make it worse.”

“It’s not about dragging him back, it’s about the fact that it’s pouring out there and it’s freezing and he left his phone and it’s after dark and he’s alone and he’s not thinking straight, _clearly,_ and _anything_ could happen to him,” Oliver stresses, the usual worst-case scenarios that flash through his head seeming more likely today.

Oliver holds Micol’s gaze. “I haven’t even told him that I forgive him yet.” 

The thought of anything at all happening to Jacob before he can even say that is unbearable to Oliver and that’s all he can think about right now.

Micol sighs, brows drawing together. 

“Go, look for him. I’ll call you if he comes home while you’re out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise Jacob hasn't like, _run away,_ he's just going off to feel some feelings. Next chapter will have an appearance from Sammy while Jacob is sorting it out. 
> 
> (Oh also here's my drawing of [Vienne](https://theuniversaline.tumblr.com/post/190383397285/vienne-perlman-in-my))
> 
> I know some people want this to focus more on Elio and Oliver but there's not really much to say with them until the other characters have dealt, other than comfort fluff but I didn't want to slow the pace of the story. 
> 
> I think perhaps there will be many little fluffy spinoff fics for this, with the characters having dealt with it and interacting with the boys :')


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty! We're at the moment where the healing is set to begin after this onee :D 
> 
> There are two songs referenced in this chapter bc Sammy and I think it's important to hear at least the second one. So [here's the first, jaunty one which really goes off after a bit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ6tKGFnemU) and [here's the exact heartbreaking performance that I imagined for the second](https://youtu.be/NxxQ0e7-iBA?t=87) because it's nine years old but I still think about it all the time as one of the greatest, most honest, most underrated performances ever... And it was just kind of like on local radio and didn't take off like it should have :(
> 
> If you're really time-poor [this](https://youtu.be/NxxQ0e7-iBA?t=160) this is the most important part of the most important song of the two

Jacob runs down the street, his body so caught up in his adrenaline and the effort of keeping up his pace that he succeeds in outrunning his feelings for a little while. He flies through yards and down walkways a car couldn’t access with the rain pelting down on him – it’s a miracle he doesn’t slip in the sleet. 

He sprints for about three minutes and then jogs for as long as he can – he doesn’t know how long – and he doesn’t really think anything, his mind jolted so far out of his situation by the jarring environmental and physical change that he thinks absently that maybe he can just do this forever and he’ll be fine. He doesn’t think much of anything as the jogging becomes meditative, the slaps of his shoes against the pavement a soothing constant.

But with the cold and the rain and the measly single sandwich he’s eaten today, he can only run for so long before he’s exhausted. Jacob slows to a walk and looks around, spotting a bus stop. He has no idea where he is in the rain and the darkness; he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going at all. He recognises the name of the stop but he’s only ever passed through here before.

Sighing, he sits in the shelter of the stop and starts trying to dry himself off, wringing his clothes as best he can. He rubs his arms to create some friction, breathing into his hands to try to keep warm and get his mind working enough to figure out his next steps, but he’s shivering terribly by the time a bus rolls up, stopping and opening the door.

The driver gives him a funny look.

“You okay, kid?” she asks, careful and concerned. 

Jacob doesn’t really know what to say. He tries to stammer out a response but the words don’t come through the cold and what feels like his brain glitching. Her eyes soften.

“…Just hop on. You need to get warm.”

He’s never been so grateful in his entire life. 

“Th-thank you,” he murmurs as he heads to the back of the bus, trying and failing not to drip water everywhere. A few of the other riders look like they got caught in the rain and the floor is already kind of wet, so he doesn’t feel too bad about it. 

The warmth of the bus’s air-conditioning feels like his whole body is being hugged. At first he only shivers harder but as he stares out of the window as the bus heads towards the city he finally warms up. He’s still damp by the time the shivering stops, but not soaked like before. 

The warmth of the space makes Jacob’s exhaustion and lack of sleep catch up with him and he finds himself starting to fall asleep with his thoughts still relatively quiet after the shock of leaving. When his head first nods down onto his chest the shock of the falling startles him awake, and he knows he needs to get out of the warmth or god knows where he’ll accidentally end up. The rain has come back down to just a pitter-patter in however long he’s been on the bus anyway, so he’s not going to get soaked through again unless it picks back up.

He gets off at the next stop, ending up somewhere in Brooklyn after thanking the driver genuinely. 

He starts walking. He still doesn’t have a plan beyond trying not to fall asleep. He keeps walking. The shivering starts up again, though it’s not quite as bad as before. He keeps walking. His feet hurt, he starts passing bars and music venues, he’s trying his best not to start thinking about anything just yet. He just keeps walking, unable to plan beyond his next footfall.

It’s not until he walks past a group of three guys and a girl smoking outside a bar and one of them calls his name that he snaps out of it.

“Jacob!”

He blinks and whips his head around – who in Brooklyn knows him? 

It’s Sammy Perlman of all people coming over, leaving his confused friends to look on.

“Hey man,” he greets, eyes kind and open but brow furrowed in concern. “You look like you’re freezing, are you all good?”

For the third time today Jacob has absolutely no idea what to say. He stands there with his mouth half open wondering if he should just bolt again like he did earlier… but he’s exhausted and honestly the sight of a kind, recognisable face – even Casanova’s guitar-playing son’s face – is a lifeline.

“Not really,” he says honestly, grateful when Sammy doesn’t act weird at the admission. 

“What are you doing all the way out here, does your dad know you’re here?”

Jacob is reminded of his father for the first time since he ran. _He’s probably out there looking for me, worried sick because he’s a good person. How am I going to get back home so he can stop worrying? I was already fucking grounded too, shit._

Jacob shakes his head. Sammy looks to the side as if weighing his options and thinks for a moment while Jacob wraps his arms around himself.

Finally Sammy says, “We’re just about to start the gig, but do you want to come in and get warm while we play? I can drop you home after – Ava won’t mind if I use the van, it’s really no trouble.”

He’s offering to do him a favour but really, it sounds more like he’s asking Jacob to please accept his kindness.

Jacob’s throat closes around a lump at this virtual stranger’s caring and compassion. Between the bus driver and this, the world keeps giving him kindness when he feels he deserves it the least… He swallows and nods before he can tear up, and Sammy gives him a gentle grin. 

“Awesome,” he says as he leads Jacob over to his huddled friends. “You’ll get to hear us play; you can tell me what you think after,” he suggests, trying to lighten the mood, but Jacob can’t muster more than a twitch of his lips and a nod. 

Picking up that Jacob needs time to himself, Sammy lets it drop and listens to his friends as they debate last minute changes to the set list. Jacob stands there with his arms folded around himself feeling like an utter child, being rescued by these cool, band-having adults. 

_They probably deal with their problems and don’t ruin things, they probably don’t say stupid things to hurt people, they probably don’t run away because it becomes too much…_

His thoughts are interrupted by movement as the band put out their cigarettes, dropping them into a makeshift beer-bottle ashtray. Sammy gives Jacob’s shoulder a light, brotherly slap and they all go in – the bartender clearly knows the band, so he doesn’t ask Jacob for ID or anything when he enters, just gives him a glass of water when he asks and lets him sit at a table by the stage where the band are setting up as a small crowd gathers.

Jacob continues feeling like a child again as he thinks about how he knows Sammy is eighteen or nineteen and he must be pretty cool and convincing to be playing here and buying a round for his bandmates to drink on stage with what must be a fake ID. Jacob barely made it through buying that stupid bourbon, and then he drank it alone and threw up. _Loser,_ his mind supplies.

He’s sat there sullenly, his thoughts spiralling until the band start playing, by which point he’s grateful for the distraction. 

The first song is kind of weird and jaunty, but also definitely a rock song, especially towards the end. It’s nothing like what Jacob has listened to most of the time before. He can make out a few of the lyrics over the sounds of the bar and the instruments but he can’t figure out what it’s really supposed to be about so he just admires – envies – the way Sammy’s fingers move expertly over the frets through his long semi-solo. The next few songs are similarly carefree and loud, though all distinct from one another… Jacob can’t hear the lyrics of most of them but they’re all punchy rock songs and judging by the probably fifty percent female audience he’s guessing they’re something attractive and cool that would appeal to them and capture their attention. 

_Maybe I should have taken up a cool instrument and then I might have had a girlfriend and my friends wouldn’t have been assholes and none of this would have happened,_ Jacob thinks, but he shakes his head – his dad is right, he’s responsible for his own choices. 

He sips his water and continues his reflection for a while, but then a special song comes along about three quarters of the way through. This one is just the singer and his guitar so he can hear the lyrics, and it’s very different from all the others. The singer has been jumping up and down and having fun with the audience all night, but he now he stands in place with his arm strumming easily at first, and then as the song picks up, desperately, like the roughly played rhythm is the only thing keeping him together.

Every section of the song seems to have a moment that breaks Jacob’s heart and it’s clear that this song is incredibly painful and personal to the singer as it builds to wrench through his throat and come out through his mouth and his arms. He’s singing sombre thoughts about the world at large at first and then it turns into a song about a girl he’s clearly loved very dearly and then lost, which is probably why he was thinking those things about the world in the first place… it’s not about family but there are so many moments where Jacob can only hear this guy singing about him, and the way he’s been with his family.

He sings about how things could be great but _“no one’s willing to drop their arms”_ , how he doesn’t see how to fix the distance that’s been created between him and this person he loves, about the fear that _“how we manage is not by love but force of habit”_ … he sings that there must be something wrong with humanity, to _“never care ‘til things are lost”…_

The singer almost seems to break down at the end, steamrolling through an almost roaring section before coming back to earth to finish on a tragic, _“…why don’t you love me like you used to, why do I worry about the future…”,_ looking down and seeming to realise where he is again.

Jacob has watched in captivated fascination and also only remembers himself at the end. He’s embarrassed to find his lip trembling a little and his eyes beginning to fill, and so he looks around to see if anyone has noticed, if anyone is going to make fun of him… but he’s not the only one. 

His friends would have been uncomfortable and embarrassed for the singer, to witness such a raw, emotional display in this very public place – they probably would have shouted something stupid to relieve their own discomfort… but these people all seem to have felt what he felt with him, some in awe, like the room has experienced some kind of emotional catharsis together as they clap and release the tension in the silence at the end.

The singer huffs out a laugh like he can’t tell if he’s proud or shy as he leans down to take a sip of his beer where it’s been sitting on the floor and Sammy gives him a clap on the back.

Jacob wants that. He wants friends that care to be there for him. He wants to be able to be vulnerable, he wants not to feel weak for feeling something… He wants to get rid of every stupid thought he ever let his friends put in his head.

The next few songs are good, but with the band coming back Jacob once more can’t make out the words so he just sips his water and continues inward, reflecting on… just, all of it.

_Why have I spent months hurting people to stop myself from feeling anything when I could have been doing something like that this whole time? That was amazing. No one called him weak, nobody laughed at him. And if they had he would have had people there to stand up for him instead of joining them. He’s got friends who saw him hurt and be upset, and they were proud of him afterwards. He’s not scared or angry or hurting anyone because of his friends and his feelings… Maybe Matty’s right and it’s not weak to need an outlet to get by._

He remembers everything Matty said today and hangs his head. He was right, and for once Jacob isn’t thinking about how he hates to admit it. What good does it do, he’s only hurting himself to deny it… The truth is that his friends aren’t good guys and they don’t like him for who he is and they never have. He knows that. He _has_ had nothing but his anger, when he could have had a family who love and support him, and it’s been his own fault. He’s not been dealing with his feelings like an adult and he’s made everybody else miserable for it – he _has_ made it ‘everyone else’s problem’. 

All of this is just the truth and it’s not Matty’s fault if it hurt Jacob to hear it or if he wasn’t ready to hear it. His parents aren’t the cause of his real pain – he’s not torn between loving and hating them and hating himself like he was last night. He doesn’t have any room left in his heart to hate anymore. Hate and anger have made him feel so much worse recently than love or sadness or any other ‘pussy’ feelings ever have.

His thoughts aren’t peaceful but they’re less of a storm than they were at his revelations last night. It’s simpler to think and feel, now that he can’t even pretend to be angry at anyone in his family.

Jacob’s thoughts are interrupted by Sammy tapping his shoulder and asking if he’s ready to go. 

“Don’t you have to pack everything up?”

“Nah, the band said they’ll do it, they get it. They’re okay to just have a few drinks while they wait for me to come back and grab them.”

Jacob is once again overwhelmed by the kindness of people who are essentially strangers, as he looks over appreciatively at the band before they head to the van. They raise their glasses to him with easy smiles as though saying _‘it’s all good, kid’_ , and then they’re out of sight.

“So what did you think?” Sammy asks, conversationally, once they’re in the van and driving.

“I thought it was really amazing,” Jacob says honestly. “You should do more stuff like that song that just the singer did.”

“Oh, you liked that one?” Sammy grins easily, treating Jacob in a brotherly way – though Jacob suspects it’s Sammy way to treat everyone like a brother.

“Yeah, who wrote it?”

“Well, Tom wrote the lyrics and then brought them to me and I helped with the guitar while he sang. He does it by himself though, since it’s still his baby. I could never play it as hard as he does when he sings and plays.”

Sammy sounds proud of his friend as he speaks of his impassioned performance, and Jacob once again wants that kind of support for himself.

“It was really really good,” is all that he says, not knowing how to convey how much he means it. A few seconds later when they’re stopped at a light Sammy reaches over into the bag at Jacob’s feet and pulls out a CD in a blank case.

“There’s a recording of it on this if you want it?” he offers, passing it to Jacob. “It’s just a quick demo _papa_ helped us record but it’s still got some good ones on there.”

“Thanks,” Jacob says, genuinely touched. He knows he’s going to listen to this a lot during his grounding. God he doesn’t even want to know what’s going to happen now… Will they even let him listen to it or will they be so mad they take every good thing away? Will they still talk to him? Will they make him change schools even though he’s realised he doesn’t even want to be around his friends anymore? 

Will they ever laugh easily with him at dinner, beat him at Trivial Pursuit, have a family movie night with him again?

He hasn’t had those things in months and it’s been his own damn fault. He just wants things to go back to normal… well, not normal. Better than normal. He wants better friends, he wants to be a better son…

There’s a while where they just listen to the radio with the windows down while Jacob quietly gives directions; Sammy can tell Jacob still needs time to think. He finally speaks again when they’re a few blocks from Jacob’s house, interrupting his fearful thoughts.

“If you don’t mind me asking… why did you end up all the way in Brooklyn tonight?”

“It’s kind of a long story…” Jacob murmurs. He looks down for a moment before deciding to confess. It’s easier to talk to people you don’t know very well, he thinks. Might as well air it all.

“I got into big trouble last night because my friends wanted me to do something stupid, and I let them goad me into doing it. After my dad came to pick me up my parents told me I couldn’t see them anymore and I got mad because I wanted to be the one to decide that and I said something really bad that I can’t take back. And so all night and all day I’ve been thinking that maybe I’m just a shitty person, a shitty son, and then my brother was being kind of annoying me so I was really mean to him because I was angry at myself and the world and then he said some things that hurt because they were true and I… fucking tackled my own brother to the ground. And when my dad broke it up I was so ashamed of… _everything,_ that I just ran and kept running.”

“You _ran_ all the way to Brooklyn?”

“No, a bus driver let me on a bus to get warm.”

Jacob sits in the silence that ensues waiting for Sammy to judge him and decide he isn’t worthy of his kindness after all and he shouldn’t have been so nice. In reality, all Sammy is thinking that it explains Oliver’s devastation the night before and his enduring sombreness leaving in the morning. He takes a moment to think about what he’s going to say before he speaks.

“I don’t know the full story obviously, but from what you’ve told me and from what I’ve overheard our dads talking about… you’ve been trying to act like you don’t care, but it’s because you do care. You care a lot and it hurts and you don’t want to hurt so you act angry. Your friends think it’s weak to be emotional and you don’t like what you’ve been doing for them but you’d rather be with them than your family who caused you to feel in the first place.”

If Jacob had any fight left in him before, it disappears in that moment. He thinks about how he should have just swallowed his pride and talked to someone else from the start, because in the last three days he’s heard more helpful truth from people he’s treated like shit than the friends he’s been desperate to please have ever given him.

“Is it all that obvious?” he sighs. 

“Kind of,” Sammy admits with an understanding look. “But it’s hard to see and admit it when you’re in it…” He pauses for a moment. “One thing I will say though is that shitty people tend not to worry about whether they’re shitty people, so you’re probably all good on that front.”

Sammy grins kindly over at Jacob but Jacob only gives him the weakest of smiles so he sighs and tries again, not liking seeing anyone hurting.

“…Are you going to be okay, Jacob?”

“I’m not right now,” he acknowledges softly, eventually. “But I’m finished pretending that I’m not at least. The last few days have kind of… I’ve been realising and admitting and denying a lot of things, and now I’m not angry anymore. After tonight I think I’m just kind of sad about it all. My parents want me to talk to a counsellor, and I think I should do it.”

“I think you should too,” Sammy says gently. “It sounds like your parents really love you a lot.”

“They do,” Jacob agrees.

Sitting in the driveway in silence for a few moments Jacob huffs a little laugh and looks to the side.

“Never thought I’d want advice from Casanova’s son.”

Sammy gives him a funny look and tilts his head.

“Did you just call my dad Casanova?”

“Oh, um, yeah…” Jacob says, blushing awkwardly. “I mean it’s just something I’ve called him in my head this whole time since he’s like, Italian and stuff and he and my dad were only back together for a month before my parents told me my dad was with some guy…”

Sammy seems to consider for a moment before he speaks. 

“Has your dad told you about what that summer meant? All that _‘cor cordium’_ , ‘between always and never’ stuff?”

Jacob looks lost, shaking his head with a puzzled expression.

“Well in that case it’s not really mine to tell, but…” he pauses, thinking. “For as long as I can remember growing up, _papa_ would stay in at night and read us stories from this book – The Heptaméron – on one particular day each year. I didn’t know it was a special day until I was maybe thirteen when I walked in on him crying in the middle of his bed one afternoon.”

Sammy looks at Jacob, making sure he’s listening – he looks rapt, and perhaps the beginnings of guilty as he waits for Sammy to continue, imagining where this is going.

“It was because this woman he’d been dating for a while wanted to do something that night and wouldn’t accept that _papa_ needed to stay in and do his yearly ‘vigil’, as he and _grandpapa_ call it, for your dad on his birthday. She broke up with him _so_ fast, because she thought he was just waiting around for this guy to come back, which wasn’t true at all and not very understanding but… Anyway, he just opened his arms and I went over to hug him and he told me all about his summer with your dad – or at least, you know, the PG version of it. It’s actually a really beautiful story…”

Sammy looks back to Jacob, looking him in the eyes again, imploringly.

“Do you see that it wasn’t – isn’t – just a fling? They weren’t together for long before they were separated and they weren’t together again for long before they decided to tell you, but they never forgot each other at all. And when they met again they still connected but your dad was so afraid of how his kids would react that he told my _papa_ they couldn’t risk trying. _Papa_ was a wreck for the week they didn’t talk; I’ve never seen him like that. He’s not Casanova, he’s like… I don’t know, someone much more pathetic, when it comes to your dad.”

Sammy is smiling at the end but he can see the devastation on Jacob’s face at the news, as he looks towards the house. Maybe Sammy could have broken the news to Jacob a little more delicately – he was clearly already feeling bad so telling him all of that might not be the best thing for his guilt… Sammy decides to say just a few words more in hopes of easing his feelings.

“Look, you’re just a person and your parents are just people… Shit has gone down but they’re going to forgive you.”

There’s a silence in the car for a few moments while Jacob hears his words and pushes past his guilt to think about how he feels like a child, again – not in the sense of being condescended to or overruled… he feels like a child in that he wants to be reassured, and told what to do, because he knows he doesn’t know best at the moment... In the sense that he knows he has a lot to learn and that the people around him seem to want to give him the tools he needs to start learning. 

Jacob turns to look at him and gives Sammy a tiny, tired, sad smile. 

“Thank you,” he begins, as he opens the door. “For…” he trails off, not knowing how to tell Sammy how he’s helped him tonight, with his kindness and his words.

“No problem,” Sammy says, sparing him, and Jacob knows he means it. 

He’s been desperate to get home and apologise but now that he’s actually here he doesn’t want to go inside… He knows it’s time to deal with the results of his choices though. He’s got no pride left to protect right now, so he walks up the steps to the porch and opens the door. 

His mother is sitting on the stairs with her head bowed and her hands clasped in front of her. They lock eyes and Jacob’s heart breaks at the relief on his mother’s face to see him home safe, even after all he’s done in the past few days and weeks and months.

She might have been ready to yell again but the moment she sees the look in Jacob’s welling eyes, the devastated trembling of his lip… she knows that they’re on the same side again, that he doesn’t want to be angry, doesn’t want to hate anyone or anything anymore. He just wants to go to his room and be very still and quiet and maybe sleep.

Micol takes one look at Jacob and rushes over to hug him. He opens his arms and shakes with the tearful tension in his body, trying not to grip too tight. It’s the first time he’s allowed his mother to touch him – let alone hug him – in months. It’s the first time he’s allowed anyone to hug him in months, and he’s forgotten how good it felt to be held until now.

Why did he ever want to discard this? He can barely remember how he started digging himself into this hole.

“Your father forgives you,” Micol gasps when she’s opened her tightly closed eyes. “He forgave you before you even said anything, and he was so scared that something would happen to you before he could say it.”

“I shouldn’t have run, I’m so sorry,” Jacob gets out, trying to hold his tears back so he can talk as the hug continues. “I’m so sorry for everything, I don’t want to fight anymore, I don’t want to see my friends, I don’t want to ruin anything anymore. I’ll go to school and come straight back home and I won’t be shitty anymore and I’ll talk to a counsellor, I _want_ to I _swear_ I’ll do whatever you want, I’m so sorry…”

It feels like a wave has crested in Micol’s chest at her son’s distraught words. She never thought she’d be happy to hear her son cry but _he’s not angry_. The fever has broken, the war is over, and her son is ready to be soft to the world again.

Micol feels like she’s standing in the wake of a terrible fire and all the life is starting to come back to the land, sprouting up green so quickly through the ashes…

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she reassures, shushing her son. Jacob is a fair bit taller than her but he feels so small as his mother pulls back and holds his arms, runs a hand over his hair, wipes his tears. 

He looks to the kitchen where Matty is standing, looking wary and confused. His little brother still doesn’t really know what’s changed since last night, but when Jacob walks over and gives him his own bone-crushing hug he doesn’t push him away. 

“I’m so sorry Matty.”

Only a few hours ago Jacob was yelling and tackling him to the ground but Matty gives his brother a soft, confused pat on the back as he hugs him, lost but figuring it must make sense in full context.

When he’s done Jacob just turns to his mother with tears welling again and says, “I know I screwed up bad but can I just go to my room for now?”

Micol nods gently, her eyes sad. Jacob leaves to the sound of Matty asking, “Are you gonna tell me everything that’s been going on now?” and Micol replying, “After I’ve called your father.”

Once in his room Jacob just wants to sleep, physically and emotionally exhausted, but he needs to wait until his dad gets home. So he cleans his room; organising his desk so he can work better as he continues catching up on school, finally putting the clothes strewn over the floor away, and taking down all the angry-looking posters he’s accumulated.

His room will look like the blank slate he wants when he’s done, but before he’s quite there there’s a soft knock at the door. He whips his head around and drops the poster he was scrunching up into the trash. 

He’s too tired to find the right words to say so when the door opens Jacob just crosses his room and hugs his father. It’s not like the gasping, teary hug with his mother – it’s wordless because no words are necessary. It’s like it never happened… better than if it never happened in fact, because they certainly never hugged like this before it all began or it might not have happened.

They finally both just want the same thing – they both just want to be honest about their feelings and move forward. They both just want to forgive each other and be forgiven… They both just want things to be okay. 

Finally they pull back and Oliver holds his son at arm’s length, inspecting him for damage and asking worried questions.

“Are you okay, what happened? Where did you go, what did you do? How did you get home?”

“...Can I talk to you about it in the morning?” he says quietly, looking down at the floor in guilt for his father’s concern. 

“Okay,” Oliver accepts, calming down at the knowledge that nothing truly terrible has happened. His son is alive, and well, and not fighting him, and right now he just needs to sleep… he can accept that for tonight.

He pulls back and only stops at the doorway to flick off the light as Jacob crawls into the bed without bothering to get into sleep clothes.

“Thanks, for not yelling at me, even though I deserve it,” he calls softly from the bed, pulling the covers up to his chin like a kid.

“I don’t want to yell at you,” Oliver says gently. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're just getting to the end and you haven't played the songs dewitt!  
> [one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ6tKGFnemU) and [two](https://youtu.be/NxxQ0e7-iBA?t=87)
> 
> I sense that Sammy and Jacob will bond over time :) Does anyone want a drawing of Jacob and Matty and Micol to visualise? Bit late in the game but I could draw something up if you want?
> 
> :D Hope y'all like it. I'm not 100% happy but I literally never am so that's a bad gauge - pls comment so I know if it's up to par or not :')))


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aight, only two or three more chapters after this one I think! (One being an epilogue)
> 
> This one is shorter but I was having a bit of trouble with it and I thought the day after deserved its own moment :') (Plus a little moment of fluffy Elio's-house time!)

In the morning Jacob wakes up feeling like his throat and chest are stuffed with cotton, with his entire body covered in sweat and his nose completely blocked. He turns over with a groan and huffs. 

The rain, the cold… _Of course._

Slowly, he leans over and grabs his phone to check his messages from the last day or two to pass some time. He’s met with a few from his friends, all some variation of _‘haha, did your parents beat your ass last night? Don’t be a little bitch dude, come do ____’._

_How did it take such a crisis to admit that all my friends are shit heads?_

He’s struck again by a longing for friends like Sammy’s… he suspects that will take time, but at least he’s still got his family while he tries.

…His family. The thought tugs at Jacob’s heart a little. He wonders when the thought of the last few days will make him feel anything other than sad or ashamed. The guilt is a lot less with his father’s forgiveness and the memory of his mother’s caring touch, but it’s still there humming in the background, and still the nagging fear that things can’t be healed properly.

With the energy sapped from his bones by whatever sickness he’s brought upon himself he’s tempted to just stay in bed wallowing forever. But he didn’t get to eat dinner last night and he’s starving, so eventually he makes his way to the dining room.

He’s not sure what he is expecting when he goes downstairs, but what he’s not expecting is to see his family sitting at the table with stacks of pancakes and freshly squeezed orange juice laid out like he didn’t tackle one of them and scare the shit out of the other two last night.

“I was just about to come get you,” his mom says with a tentative smile in her voice as Jacob descends the stairs. “We made pancakes.”

Jacob doesn’t know what to say as he enters the room but it’s fine because Matty beats him to the punch.

“Wow, you look like shit, Jacob.”

“Language Matty,” his father says out of habit, entering the dining room with the maple syrup. But when he looks towards his eldest son he sees Matty is right.

“Oh wow,” he raises his eyebrows. Oliver was ready to try to have a healing family breakfast – their first since before Thanksgiving – but Jacob really does look awful. His nose is shiny and his eyes are red-rimmed, his skin a little pallid and dull; it’s a shock from his usual light tan.

“I think I’m sick,” Jacob croaks before his body is wracked with a wet coughing fit. Immediately Micol is over, rubbing her son’s back in an attempt to soothe his lungs. When he regains his wheezing breath Micol just sends him upstairs for a warm shower, insisting that she’ll bring him some of the food in bed when he’s had a warm shower and gotten into some pyjamas. 

Jacob just nods and does as she says, not talking because he can’t think of anything worthwhile to say. As he goes up the stairs it feels sort of like he’s failed – his family laid out this nice Sunday morning breakfast so they could all eat together and finally enjoy the peace he’s promised them, and he can’t even sit with them to eat it.

But he pushes the thought to the back of his mind, too exhausted and sick to think too much of anything. The shower and the softest set of pyjamas he owns help to bring him back to life a little but he knows he’s not going to feel human for the foreseeable future…It feels like a punishment from god or the universe.

Soon his mom comes in and sits on the edge of the bed to feel his forehead and give him some overly sweet medicine that will go down better than a pill, and for the umpteenth time in the last few days he feels like a child… but he doesn’t have the desire or the will to fight it anymore so he accepts his mother’s care and appreciates her doting gentleness. 

He can’t help but bask a little in something he feared he’d never have again for a moment before he starts to feel sad and guilty again.

“I’m so sorry mom,” he croaks. “Not just for last night or Friday, for everything that’s happened since—” 

Micol hushes her son, “Not now, Jacob.”

“But I’m so—"

“We’ll talk about everything eventually, but right now you need to eat, and stay in bed,” she says softly as Oliver comes in with a small stack of pancakes on a tray. She tells her son she’ll be in to collect it in a while and leaves him be. 

_‘We’ll talk about it later’_ , sounds ominous to Jacob, and his thoughts could easily spiral right now, but with the sickness, the medicine, the remaining exhaustion, and the warm food, he’s on the verge of sleep again very soon. He’s startled half-awake by his mother returning to deliver a box of tissues and take the tray away, but almost immediately he’s taken under.

Several dreamless hours later he reawakens and is struck again by his desire to be with his family. It’s like a storm has gone through his life and wrecked his home and all he wants is to go back to his family home and rebuild from there… only he’s been the storm and it’s not just _his_ home whose path he’s crossed. 

Jacob gathers his duvet about him like he used to when he was sick as a kid, and heads downstairs to have this talk.

“Why was Ava over last night?” Elio asks over his book and coffee the same morning as Sammy enters the room.

“Oh, well the band had a few rounds while I dropped Jacob home and I think she kind of forgot she would have to drive herself home,” Sammy says with a little smile in his voice at her mistake as he pulls four slices of bread out of the bag and goes about making two sandwiches.

“Wait what?” Elio says with a confused frown, turning in his chair and perching his glasses on top of his head. “Jacob? _Oliver’s_ Jacob? Why were you with him?”

“Oh,” Sammy exclaims, surprised. “I figured Oliver would have called to tell you.”

“No, Oliver hasn’t told me anything, I haven’t talked to him since he left yesterday,” Elio says, frown deepening.

“Jacob told me that he like, snapped at Matty really unnecessarily when he said some things, and kind of tackled him? And then when Oliver separated them he panicked and ran. Ended up on a bus, then ended up in Brooklyn near where our gig was. I recognised him when I saw him passing and he looked pretty messed up, so I stopped him and got him inside so he could warm up. I dropped him home after we finished.”

“Oh my god,” Elio says, processing.

“Mm,” Sammy agrees. “It’s lucky I looked up when he was passing.”

But Elio’s not worried about how likely or unlikely the events were, he’s worried about what impact it’s all going to have on the future of the situation.

“How was he? Was he angry? How did you convince him to stay with you?”

“Honestly he just seemed really sad, and lost, so it didn’t take much convincing,” Sammy says, his voice utterly compassionate. “He told me, basically, that he was too tired to be angry anymore. He wasn’t mad at his dad, he was worried that he was, quote, ‘just a shitty person’… I just told him he probably wasn’t and that his parents loved him a lot. He said he wanted to see the counsellor they’re setting up so I think that’s a good sign if nothing else.”

Elio is staring at the table, conflicted in what he feels – because obviously, for things to escalate to where they apparently did yesterday is very bad, but if Jacob isn’t angry anymore then… maybe things have finally progressed to where they can all start moving forward, out of this holding pattern. 

Maybe Oliver can stop being hurt and torturing himself all the time and things can finally be okay – better than okay.

He hesitates to be relieved but he wants to be optimistic, and he’s desperate for information only Oliver can give him to confirm the side on which he should fall… But if Sammy has the right account of things he should definitely wait until Oliver has the time to call or visit. 

He senses he’s in for a long day of brooding and worrying, and sighs. He’s about to resume his book when a thought occurs to him before Sammy leaves with the sandwiches on two plates.

“Oh, by the way Sammy – I don’t think Ava ‘forgot’ she was going to have to drive herself home.”

Sammy tilts his head. “What do you mean?”

Elio raises an eyebrow and places his glasses back over his eyes. 

“She’s in your bed, Sammy, and if you ask me she’s made it pretty clear that she wants to be there. Often." He pins Sammy with a dry look. "You’re worse than Oliver and I were. Just ask her on a date already, she’s too shy to ask you.” 

Elio shakes his head and returns to reading without another word, leaving his son to silently return to his room, blushing.

Oliver and Micol sit on their respective lounges, thinking. 

“What do we need to do now?” Oliver asks, his hands clasped in front of him.

Micol shrugs, at a loss. “I mean the counsellor is a must obviously… it doesn’t feel like this is just related to the divorce though. Probably a general therapist. By his actions the last couple of days we should be raking him across the coals but… I don’t know if it’s partially that he’s sick, but,” she sighs. “He let me take care of him, he didn’t snap at Matty for saying he looked like shit, he said he was sorry even when I shushed him… I just—I think he’s woken up. I think he’s tired.”

“I agree,” Oliver begins, but before he can say more they hear the sound of Jacob descending the stairs and the room falls silent.

“Hey,” Jacob calls, standing uncertainly at the entrance of the living room.

“How are you feeling?” Oliver asks, not knowing where else to start and wanting to convey to his hesitant son that he’s welcome, that they want to meet him halfway – or, judging by his words recently, that they’re willing to let him come to them.

“The same,” he shrugs, his face still unsure, his posture tentative. 

“Sit down, we can talk,” Micol offers, gesturing to the sole arm chair. Jacob is over in an instant, turning the chair to face his parents and sitting down cross-legged wrapped in his blanket, waiting to follow their lead. 

It reminds Oliver of his own attitude towards his conversation with Elio after he hurt him; _I’m sorry I hurt you, ask me anything; I’m at your mercy._

It almost feels like they don’t need to have the conversation because they know in that moment that Jacob is done with every part of his behaviour that has hurt the people he loves… but they do need to have this conversation, if for no other reason than to know the events of the last twenty-four hours.

“What happened yesterday?” Oliver asks, last night’s _where did you go, what did you do, how did you get home_ implied.

Jacob sighs, looking down. He takes a deep breath and begins.

“I was so overwhelmed by everything and ashamed of hurting Matty that I ran, and I just kept running and running until I didn’t really know where I was. I was at this bus station and I was freezing and I didn’t know the way home, so when a bus driver offered to let me on I just accepted, to be warm.”

Micol is giving Jacob a look that tells him she thinks that was a very stupid move, and he knows she’s right but he wasn’t thinking straight. Oliver just waits for his son to continue. 

“But when I got warm on the bus I started falling asleep because I got so little sleep the night before and because of all the running in the rain…” Jacob is looking at his hands, missing Oliver’s heartbroken look at the note that he had slept poorly when Oliver hadn’t forgiven him. “…so I just got off at the next stop after I very nearly fell asleep, in Brooklyn.”

“…You went all the way to _Brooklyn?”_ Micol exclaims, dubious. “You didn’t have your phone or any money, how the hell did you get home?”

Jacob looks as reprimanded as Micol wants him to feel in that moment despite his apologies and obvious remorse.

“I didn’t have a plan, exactly… or at all. My only plan was to keep walking, but then someone called my name and when I turned to see who it was, it was Elio’s son, Sammy.”

Now it’s Oliver’s turn to exclaim.

“You were with _Sammy?”_

“Yeah, he offered to let me get warm in the bar where his band was playing and to drop me home after.”

“…That was… very nice, of him,” Micol comments stiltedly, sounding a little confused. She wasn’t really expecting that – she wasn’t sure what she was expecting the story to be, but not that.

“It was,” Jacob agrees, simultaneously warm on the inside at the memory of everyone’s kindness last night, and frowning on the outside at how unworthy he felt of that kindness all night. “He said a lot of really helpful stuff; he even gave me a copy of his band’s demo when I said I really liked their songs.”

He’s looking at his hands, picking at his nails, waiting for his parents to speak. 

“What did he say that was so helpful?” Micol asks, curious.

“I was already too tired to pretend that anyone but me was causing problems, but...” Jacob takes a breath, pausing to think. “He told me that if I’m worried about it then I’m probably not a bad person, and he sort of… laid out why it sounded like I’d been doing what I was doing. He told me it was good I wanted to talk to someone…” he looks up for a moment, blushing with embarrassment. “He told me a bit about you and Elio, and explained how you never forgot each other and it’s not just a fling…”

Oliver has wanted to explain to his son that he and Elio aren’t just a whim since he broke the news, but every time he’s tried Jacob has shut it down – the last thing Jacob wanted to talk to his father about was his romantic life with the man he thought of as the wrecker of his home.

“…Honestly, seeing how cool and supportive all his friends were – even towards me, this random kid…” Jacob sighs long, his voice wobbling a little over his next words. “His friends next to mine? I can’t keep pretending I don’t want friendship like that. I want friends that like me. I want people to like me… I want _you guys_ to like me…”

“We _do_ like you, Jacob,” Oliver reassures with his brows drawn, though Jacob doesn’t see, still looking at his hands. Maybe they haven't liked the way he's been _acting_ in recent months, but they'll never stop liking who they know he is underneath it all. 

It’s strange for Oliver, seeing the parts of Jacob he’s always kept hidden behind bravado or a forced laugh or a sneer… but he likes it. Perhaps this is how Matty felt when he saw his father being honest about something real for the first time… Oliver is sorry it’s taken all of this for his son to admit and begin to heal these things, but he can’t feel anything but relief at every word.

_Maybe this is the best way this could all have gone…_

“How do you feel now?” Micol asks finally, after letting Oliver’s words sit in the air for a moment.

“Just sad,” Jacob says quietly, looking up only for a moment. Even as he’s consciously opening up it feels like too much to meet anyone’s gaze as he does it. 

“I think I was just being angry to protect myself from how sad I was about you guys breaking up… I didn’t want to give anyone the power to make me sad when I felt so powerless over what was going to happen. It felt stronger to be angry. I don’t think I’m even sad about the divorce anymore, after so much else has happened… I think I’m just kind of sad about everything now… How I’ve been acting, the things I’ve said, how far behind I let myself get in school, how hard it’s going to be having to start over with making new friends…” 

Jacob shakes his head, lost in thought for a moment before looking his dad and then his mom directly in the eyes. His voice breaks a little as a few tears escape. “I wish I could do it differently, I’m just so sorry...”

At that Micol finally breaks and says “Oh, sweetheart,” gesturing for her son to join her on the sofa and hugging him into her side – duvet and all.

There’s a little ‘Parenting 101’ part of her insisting that he should still pay the price for his choices even though he’s sorry to cement the lesson, but… he doesn't want to do any of the things the punishments were to stop him from doing, and the boy in her arms doesn’t seem to be the one that left her house to steal a skateboard, or even the one who ran out because he was so ashamed and overwhelmed that he hurt his father and his brother... Something vital has shifted and suddenly the rest of it feels irrelevant, like a dream.

“Well,” she says, finally. “You look like death, so I don’t think you’ll be back at school for a few days; you can spend them trying to catch up in bed.” She strokes her son’s hair. “And then you can rise from the dead and destroy the teachers who yelled at you with your unexpected superior knowledge,” Micol chuckles softly, her son joining her and stifling a cough.

“This isn’t even my final form,” he croaks lamely, getting a chuckle out of Oliver too, who has moved to stand above them, leaning his arms on the top of the sofa.

The ease of the joking eases his mind, the familiar comfort of a hug and a laugh going a long way to convince his heart that his family isn’t going to punish him by keeping him on the outside, even if his mind knows they’ve said they won’t.

“Can we please have a movie night tonight?” Jacob asks from his cocoon after a while, suddenly reminded of all the things he wanted to do with his family last night. Oliver can’t keep the slightly misty eyed smile off of his face as he places a hand on his son’s head and ruffles his hair a little.

“I think we can,” he says with his smile clear in his voice, as Micol hums in agreement and the room falls into warm, comfortable silence again. 

Eventually Jacob tries to pull back suddenly, exclaiming, “Wait, Mom, I’ll get you sick.”

“I’ll be fine,” Micol insists, pulling him back to her side and resting her head on his chin. “We’ll all be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aight, next chapter we'll get into the actual moving forward, making new friends, finding outlets, etc :')
> 
> [Drawings for Oliver, Jacob, Micol, Matty, and Marzia :)](https://theuniversaline.tumblr.com/post/190531172920/oliver-jacob-micol-matty-and-marzia-the-way-i)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right! This is the last chapter proper - the next will be the epilogue :)
> 
> Lots of fluff in this one, barely an angsty thought :')) I just wanted my babies to be happy ♥️

That night Jacob finally lets his parents know what he wants for his birthday when they’re watching Footloose and he’s reminded of his thoughts after Sammy’s band’s gig – a guitar, acoustic to start with. Oliver is surprised at the request but only too willing to oblige.

Which is why he arrives to the lunch he and Elio planned on Monday holding a bulky guitar case. Elio raises his eyebrows as Oliver positions the case upright in the booth next to him.

“And who’s our third guest?” Elio asks, a dubious eyebrow raised and a surprised smile on his lips as he leans up to accept Oliver’s hello kiss.

“Yet to be named,” Oliver sighs. “It’s for Jacob’s birthday on Wednesday,” he says, sliding into the booth as the waitress arrives. When they’ve ordered Elio is still smiling softly.

“So it’s true,” he muses. “If he’s told you what he wants for his birthday then we’re… over the hill?”

Oliver smiles hopefully, his eager eyes meeting Elio’s cautious gaze.

“I… think it’s over. When he tried to steal, when he said what he said, I kind of thought it was the start of us having an even worse relationship because we would have to put the foot down, but… It’s like a switch flipped on Saturday and he’s a whole different person. Or the same person he always was underneath, before everything. I think we’re going to get it right this time.

“We had a talk, he opened up to us, he’s not angry anymore, he’s…” the smile dims a little. “He’s not angry anymore, but I don’t know how things are going to be. Things at home are great, but I think he’s going to be… down, for a while. He’s decided he doesn’t care about his old friends anymore which is good, but he doesn’t have any new ones yet. I’m worried he’s going to be lonely, when he’s already sad about everything that’s happened.” 

Oliver seems sucked into a hole for a moment but quickly digs himself out, smiling again.

“But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Things are as good as they can be right now, and that’s good for now.”

Elio lays his hand over Oliver’s, proud of him in that moment for not catastrophising and ruining his own joy as he has a tendency to.

“That’s amazing, Oliver,” he says, genuinely.

“It is,” he agrees, before frowning thoughtfully with a smile. “It feels a little sudden though, doesn’t it? I felt like I needed to pinch myself all last night.”

“It is a pretty big jump from the lowest low on Friday to calm waters on Sunday morning, but… that’s often how it is. You said yourself he already seemed sorry and uncertain on Friday… he just needed the push.”

“That’s true,” Oliver agrees. “Oh, and can you thank Sammy when you see him next? The way Jacob tells it Sammy was the only reason he made it home safe with just a cold, and apparently he said some really useful things on the way back.”

"That sounds like Sammy,” Elio agrees with a proud, fond smile.

They sit there smiling at each other for but a scant moment, and Elio’s mind instantly goes to the fact that he hasn’t seen Oliver this easily joyful in months, which naturally takes him to all the places such easy joy can take them again.

“Well then… things are going pretty well by all accounts, and Sammy’s finally on a date with Ava—”

“Oh, fucking _finally.”_

“—which means the house is empty. So we could go back to mine for a bit and… celebrate?” Elio proposes suggestively, with a raised eyebrow.

Oliver is instantly in the same headspace – the space freed up now that his guilt is evaporating. His gaze heats to a simmer as he leans forward, lowering his voice so no one else hears.

“My lectures are covered until three…”

“And I have nowhere to be today because I am a flighty irresponsible in the nine to five workplace,” Elio finishes, maintaining his enticing expression and tone through his jest. 

“That’s very lucky for me.”

“That is very lucky for you, Professor.”

Oliver makes a face. “Ugh, still no.”

“It’ll grow on you. Excuse me, could we get these boxed up to go?”

It’s difficult to maintain a sexy atmosphere rushing through traffic with a heavy guitar case, but somehow they manage it. 

Oliver is late to his lecture.

There’s still work being done with Jacob but everything is just lighter – the work is not something they’re enduring; they’re working _towards_ something with it, and everyone is on board.

With Oliver sleeping better and Jacob no longer doling out those dirty looks whenever he leaves for Elio’s, he finally gets to know Elio’s friends as himself rather than the quiet shadow he was the last time they met. He’s still never going to be quite on their level but it’s more to do with his being older than them than anything else this time.

And his age is never more apparent than the night a few weeks after the blowout when Elio is laughing at him as they ramble through the streets trying to get back to his house, because despite having about the same number of drinks, Oliver is clearly more intoxicated than Elio is.

“Oh my god,” Elio laughs, barely able to get the words out because he’s having trouble breathing. “I remember you being able to hold your drink so much better than this,” he cackles, struggling to remain upright.

“Don’t judge me, Italian,” Oliver calls from a few steps ahead, swinging around a lamp post like Elio vaguely remembers him doing once before a long time ago. “Not all of us are sophisticated Europeans who have an aperitif before _every meal_ followed by a glass of wine during and a digestif after with absolutely _zero_ consequences, building a lifelong tolerance to this _poison,”_ he exclaims with a gesture, turning back to put an arm around Elio and pull him forward. 

“Keep up,” he ribs and Elio just grins up at him hard, unable to contain the joy of seeing this unreservedly carefree side of Oliver as he hasn’t since Rome.

“Oh my god, _Rome!”_ he cries at the thought. “Is this how it was with me in Rome? You’re not going to throw up are you?”

“Don’t make fun of me, I’m old,” Oliver whines, but he doesn’t mean it, smiling and leaning down to kiss Elio, who talks through the kiss.

“I’m older now too lightweight,” he giggles, words garbled by Oliver’s lips.

“God, _we’re_ old,” Oliver groans as they arrive at the front door, leaning against the wall while Elio searches for the keys. 

“Speak for yourself,” he scoffs, “I am a spritely thirty-seven, thank you very much.”

“Braggart,” Oliver grumbles as they make their way up the stairs, only to find Marzia standing at the top.

“You two are very loud,” she says, with her arms crossed.

“Sorry,” Oliver says sheepishly, hiding his face in Elio’s hair. But Elio knows better than to believe Marzia’s half-serious words.

“Oliver is wasted,” he singsongs with a laugh and a kiss to his blushing cheek. 

“Seems like you’re not far behind,” Marzia observes with a raised eyebrow before shaking her head with a grin. “You two have always been such terrible influences on each other. Are you going to go have very loud sex now?” she asks drily. 

Elio widens his eyes and puts a hand to his heart. “I will not be slandered like this in my own home! I am an unmarried man! Virginal and pure!”

“Did the stork bring your two children then?” Marzia asks, indulging him in the game.

“Yes! I have _never_ had sex in my _life!”_ Elio insists as he herds Oliver into what they now think of as their room.

“Sammy, turn your music on,” Marzia calls through the door before heading to her own room with a self-satisfied smirk.

There’s a few moments where Oliver just murmurs something about how he wants to make Elio not-unmarried against his neck, but then horrendous seventies porn music blasts from the other side of the house and they find themselves unable to kiss around their laughter. Before they know it they’ve fallen asleep, fully clothed and on top of the sheets.

When Elio awakens in the morning, his first thought is _God, my head,_ but the second thought is _God, I’ve missed this,_ as he studies Oliver’s blank, sleeping face and smiles.

_It was all worth it._

The week after Jacob’s runout he’s already in the waiting room at the therapist’s office, waiting for his appointment. Despite how much he wants to be there and how far he’s so quickly come in the last week of staying home, spending time with his family, opening up, and accepting his gifts with a smile and a thank you before blowing out his birthday candles… he’s still a little embarrassed to be sitting in a shrink’s office. 

Once he’s inside the office and seated with Dr. Geraldine (“call me Jerry”) Thompson, it’s just fine, though – he’s had practice talking it out already. 

When he starts saying things like, “I realised that as far as the distance going back to tell my family I was sorry felt, there was nothing at all in the direction I was headed”, barely a session in Jerry laughs and asks him if he’s sure he needs to be there. He laughs a quietly to himself, flushing a little in pride and reassurance at being called anything close to smart or self-aware during the struggle to get his grades back. 

They end up talking more about the things that led him to the behaviours that landed him where he was in the first place and he finds it really helpful, even if he doesn’t necessarily feel those things anymore.

“I think they just didn’t know how to tell us because they’d never done it before – obviously,” Jacob explains at their third session. “After Matty took it so well they were so candid with me… It just felt like it didn’t mean anything to them, I guess. We weren’t perfect but we were a family, and with the way they broke the news, it just felt like it couldn’t have meant that much to them.

“I know that dad cares, because of how he put everything pretty much on hold and how much he put up with from me, but... at the time, it felt like things that mattered to me in the past were wrong, because they couldn’t care as much as they seemed like they did. And I couldn’t stop it, so I just wanted to find some power.” 

Jacob pauses for a moment to think, grateful that Jerry never butts in when he needs time. 

“I knew how to make my friends like me, or at least pretend to. I didn’t know how to make my parents stay together. So I kind of just decided to shuck off that whole side of my life and invest in my friends even though deep down I knew they didn’t like me for who I was. I know it was stupid now.”

Jerry purses her lips.

“I don’t think it was necessarily stupid, Jacob. Your actions weren’t very wise, but I think it was just a part of your process in dealing with a big change. It wasn’t necessarily the best way to go about it and I certainly think you would have benefitted from coming to talk to someone sooner, but it’s not the worst thing you could have done.”

Jacob absorbs for a moment, and he thinks he does agree with most of it but there’s one place he differs. 

“Maybe things would be different if I’d come here sooner against my will, but I do kind of respect how much space my parents were willing to give me. I know it didn’t come naturally to my dad to let a situation play out rather than try to control it, and I guess it makes me feel like they respected me and my feelings, even if I don’t think I was worthy of their trust then.”

“Why do you think he chose to change his tack with this scenario and not others, before?”

“I mean… I guess he changed a lot of things when he got back together with Elio. He’s easier about a lot of things in general now. Elio’s all European and his parents clearly let him do whatever he wanted when he was a kid, ‘cause I did the math and he was seventeen to my dad’s twenty-four when they started their thing which isn’t something I want to think about even though there’s a part of me that’s like well-done Casanova because I certainly could not get with a twenty-four-year-old woman but…”

Jacob blushes at his rambling for a moment.

“I guess it was probably Elio’s influence.”

“Maybe not such a bad guy?” Jerry prods.

“I don’t think he is necessarily, no. If my dad loves him that much he’s probably pretty cool. I know that now.”

That tangled ball of string Jacob’s emotions were when he tackled Matty is being slowly, calmly disentangled, and every day he feels a little lighter – which isn’t to say he doesn’t cry, or feel sad or lonely without his friends, but it allows him to really explore his own interests outside his old friends’ and find things that grip and challenge him. 

He’ll never tell anyone that he ends up sitting through several hours of subtitled French tragedy for the next time he sees Vienne but he figures he’s allowed to keep some secrets.

At first he’s just going to school and avoiding the people who might give him shit by hiding out in the library while he studies – god knows they’re never going to happen to be in there. But then a few of the kids there recognise him from classes and ask what he’s doing there since they’ve never really seen him around before. He can’t think of a lie in time so he just tells them he needs to catch up on a lot of classes and they insist they’re all only too happy to help. 

They’re people he wouldn’t have given a second glance to until now but it’s just their instinct to be open and kind. He likes that. Pretty soon he’s all caught up but they just keep hanging out during lunch and after school and before he knows it he has what he would tentatively call friends, again. They’re all a lot cooler than he would have given them credit for. 

_Years of hanging out with shitty people because I was too scared to leave, and a whole new group adopts me just like that? …Fuck me, I’m dumb,_ he thinks with a forgiving laugh.

Elio comes over for dinner a few times over the semester and it’s… not that awkward, Jacob is surprised to find. The first time he quietly adds a joke to something Elio says with a tentative smile, the whole table goes still for half a second of shock, before the tension is released with a laugh around the room. Jacob finds himself laughing too, happy with the ease of it now that he’s thinking straight about it all.

There are benefits to having Elio around too, he finds. He comes over to teach Matty how to play that Star Wars song in person now that Jacob isn’t an obstacle, and the kid can _finally_ play it all the way through reasonably well, which means it gets on Jacob’s nerves less – not that he’d ever say something about that particular song being played again given what happened. 

It also comes in handy when Jacob gets around to asking out the girl in the group who always makes him tongue-tied and nervous. Her name is Emily and she’s in his English class. She’s about ten times smarter than he is which he’s surprised to really like and she’s mentioned several times that Italian food is her favourite.

It’s kind of embarrassing to have his dad and Elio teach him how to make a pasta dish as the Italians actually do while his mom and some guy called Michael watch on, but by the end he’s got something to impress Emily with so it’s worth it… it’s much more embarrassing when they all come home from their double date after the dinner and coax out of him that it went really well and she let him kiss her at the door. The cheer is loud and it’s decided that there will be champagne all round. 

Jacob’s cheeks flush with mortification but hey, he gets his first tiny glass of champagne out of it so it’s really not all bad.

He practices with his guitar too between studying and meeting up with his new friends, and pretty soon he can play all the basic chords. 

He tries to figure out how to play the songs on Sammy’s band’s CD by ear but it’s more difficult than he expected. Which is how he ends up asking his dad if Sammy could maybe write the progressions out for him to learn to play – he doesn’t want to overstep by asking him to actually teach him in person, but at the bottom of the page there’s a little note saying _“It’s awesome you’re interested, we should jam sometime!”_ next to a little smiley face.

Jacob can’t help but smile himself as he begins practicing them, enjoying being able to make all the sounds he’s been listening to over and over for weeks.

They do eventually ‘jam’ as Sammy puts it, and Jacob feels a little awkward at first even after he essentially spilled his guts to the guy in the van, but it’s hard to stay uncomfortable around Sammy for very long. He just doesn’t want anyone to feel weird, and Jacob thinks that’s exactly the kind of person he wants to be. 

He wouldn’t call his relationship with Sammy a friendship per se since he’s a few years younger and they haven’t hung out that many times, but he can’t deny he’s hopeful that one day it might be a friendship.

_I mean, our dads really don’t seem like they’re splitting up anytime soon, so there’s time._

It’s not just learning other people’s songs that Jacob uses his guitar for though. At Jerry’s suggestion he tries to use it as an outlet the way he admired Sammy’s bandmate doing that amazing, terrible night. The first few attempts aren’t very good – he feels kind of stupid trying to put it all into pretty words, let alone put some random tune to them. But after a few frustrating attempts, he stops trying to write a full song about how he feels in that exact moment and starts writing down snippets and snatches of thought about anything he’s ever felt strongly, playing around on his guitar until little patterns start to emerge. This process is much more helpful, he thinks – there’s no point in writing a song for an outlet if the process isn’t actually an outlet. 

It’s not a catharsis for how he feels now but it’s still a catharsis for how he’s felt, which can’t hurt, he supposes. 

_Maybe it’s helping you process things, maybe it’s not. You like it, is what matters,_ he tells himself whenever he compares himself to Sammy’s bandmate.

One afternoon towards the end of the semester he’s playing around sitting on the piano stool, trying to perfect the first song he’s come close to finishing. He’s still not one hundred percent on the chords but the muscle memory is setting in he thinks. He’s not the world’s best singer but he doesn’t let it limit his writing. 

The song isn’t about how he feels now, it’s how he thinks he felt deep down when he found out his parents were separating. 

By the time he gives the song its first full run-through, he’s pretty proud of himself. 

_You’ve certainly come a long way,_ Jerry’s voice says faintly in his head and he smiles.

“Why are you smiling?”

Jacob starts, almost dropping his guitar at the sound of his father’s slightly choked voice. He turns with wide eyes to find him standing behind him by the door. He must have been just out of his peripheral vision.

“Oh my god, you scared the _shit_ out of me!” he exclaims, clutching his chest for effect as he catches his breath. 

“Sorry,” Oliver says sheepishly, but his eyes are still a little misty.

“Did you ask why I’m smiling?”

“Well, yeah, that song was really sad. Did you write it?”

“Yeah, I didn’t think anyone was home. I was smiling because I was proud,” Jacob explains, a little embarrassed to have been caught in the moment.

Oliver pauses for a moment, his expression becoming pained.

“Is that really how you feel?”

Jacob tilts his head.

“What do you mean?”

“All that “they were here first”, “I don’t believe you, you don’t care a bit” stuff? Is that how you feel about it?”

Jacob’s expression softens from confusion to apologetic understanding in the face of his father’s sad frown – he never meant for his father to hear that song, at least not without an explanation first. 

“…No, dad. Not anymore. It’s about how I used to feel before I understood, or even wanted to understand.” Jacob stands up, going over to hug his father in that emotionally open way he never would have felt comfortable doing before all of this. “I know you care.”

Oliver takes a deep breath, remembering for a moment how it felt all those nights when he laid awake wondering if his son would ever let him in as his father, or if it was too late, now that he was ready to try… It all worked out. No point in letting it ruin this now. 

Until he has children of his own, Jacob can’t know how much it means when he murmurs, “You’re a good dad, dad,” with a smile in his voice.

The semester is over and school is out for the summer. The divorce papers are filed and Micol will be moving into a smaller house close to both the boys’ school and the one where she teaches. Once everything is finalised they can stay there during the week and stay with their dad and Elio on the weekends. 

With Marzia moving in with Mark there are two spare bedrooms free for them. The only dispute will be the boys sorting out who gets the bigger room, but they’re all fairly certain Jacob will win that one – he’s very excited about the prospect of a double bed. 

Oliver can’t help but feel it’s all suspiciously perfect but he’ll take what he can get for as long as it’s given. 

One Saturday afternoon he’s dropping a few things off at Elio’s on his way home from another errand with Jacob, by chance during another round of Sammy and Vienne’s tradition while Vienne is home for her break. 

“Heyy!” Sammy calls when he sees Oliver and Jacob reaching the top of the stairs. “Just in time for Underworld!”

Jacob tilts his head a little internally at that – maybe Sammy, but he wouldn’t have expected Vienne to sit through a movie like Underworld. Not that he’s complaining. He looks up to his father, begging with his eyes, _‘pleease can we stay to watch it with them…’_

“I suppose we could stick around for it,” Oliver gives with a little smile. “Can’t let Elio fetch beer and make popcorn all by himself.”

“Try telling them that,” Elio says sarcastically as Oliver goes over to greet him with a kiss. 

Jacob stands awkwardly at the top of the stairs for a moment before Sammy scoots over and slaps the floor-cushions next to him. Jacob is over in an instant. He’s grateful to have his thing going with Emily because if there was any chance of anything happening he’d be a nervous wreck being so close to Vienne. 

_Be cool, Jacob._

Sammy is about to press play on the movie when it occurs to him to offer, “Want a beer, Jacob?” and then it occurs to him again, “Oh wait, shit. Oliver is Jacob allowed to have a beer with us?”

Jacob is mortified for the two seconds it takes his dad to consider and then even more embarrassed at his answer.

“No, he’s only seventeen.”

 _“Daad!”_ Jacob whines, his childish tone not helping his case.

What does help his case is Elio leaning in to murmur. 

“Oliver,” he admonishes lightly with a smile. “He’s _seventeen,_ he can have _one_ beer surely,” he goads with a raised eyebrow before continuing quiet enough that Jacob doesn’t hear. “I was seventeen when we met and you had no problems mixing me martinis all night.” 

Oliver groans and looks up to the sky as if asking for assistance as he’s ganged up on. But no heavenly backup arrives and so he caves. 

“Fine,” he concedes. “ _One. Maybe_ two if we stay for dinner.”

A cheer goes up around the room from all the Perlmans as Sammy eagerly bounds over to the fridge, seemingly having had one or two of his own already. Jacob’s chest warms at the idea that they want him around enough to fight to make him feel like one of them – or at least you know, to consume the same ‘traditional’ beverages as them.

“Awesome,” Sammy grins as he resumes his position between Vienne and Jacob, passing the opened beer and pressing play.

Jacob is sure to sip it slowly, remembering the incident with the bourbon and not being sure what the percentage on the beer actually means in terms of its effects. He’s reading the bottle rather than watching the movie when two light claps shock him out of it.

 _“Papa! Plus de pop-corn!”_ Vienne calls in mock-insolence over her shoulder as her _papa_ shakes his head indulgently before heading to the stove to do as requested. Jacob’s dad follows in step, scarcely a foot of space between them, and at that Jacob decides to start paying attention to the movie to avoid hearing anything unfortunate.

They’re about half an hour in when Sammy jokes to Vienne with a grin in his voice, “What would Charlotte say if she saw you now, lusting after another woman? An _English_ woman no less! For shame Vienne, for shame.”

Vienne gives a demur side glance and says, “What Charlotte doesn’t know will not hurt her,” taking a dainty sip for good measure. 

It’s in that moment that Jacob realises there was no point being nervous around Vienne in the first place because not only is she taken, she clearly bats for the other team. 

And Jacob’s mind just goes, _huh._ A few months ago he thinks a part of him would feel robbed or angry at the world, like the universe was taking something away from him even though he never stood a chance with her in the first place, even if she did like men, but now he just… _huh,_ because he knows it has nothing to do with him at all. He’s not owed anything.

It’s a peaceful thought – a little undercut by the gory violence onscreen but peaceful nonetheless. Jacob finds he feels settled, like another piece has fallen into place with his new world view and newly melding family. 

The night continues and Jacob finds he has more interesting things to say now that he’s had time to develop his own fascinations and hobbies outside of his previous friends, and Sammy and Vienne seem to appreciate it. He doesn’t feel like he needs to think before he says something around them, which is nice. It feels a lot like hanging out with his other new friends.

Jacob’s dad does eventually let him have a second beer, cracking open one himself as the sun goes down. They take a break from the movies to chat amongst themselves while the adults make dinner with the radio on. 

It’s all normal smooth sailing until an old song from the eighties comes on and Elio gasps, “Oh my god,” before laughing and then half-performing some kind of weird jumping dance move, clearly mocking Jacob’s dad.

Oliver immediately turns red and snakes an arm around Elio’s waist, pulling him off his feet to stop the movement.

“I literally can’t even mimic it, I have too much co-ordination,” Elio laughs breathlessly as Oliver begins poking him in the ribs and he begs him to stop.

“God they’re disgusting,” Vienne mutters heatlessly over her wine glass. 

“Shut up Vienne, you don’t get to comment when you’re breaking with tradition,” Sammy glares from his position with his arm folded over the back of the sofa and his chin leaning on them. 

Jacob can’t tell if he’s actually bothered that Vienne has switched to wine or if he’s joking, but he suspects it’s a bit of both.

“What’s the story there?” Vienne asks, unable to feign disinterest.

“It’s kind of our song,” Oliver explains as he and Elio eventually sway in time together when their weird wrestling is done. Jacob doesn’t think he’ll ever understand exactly why they do that.

“What, did you make out for the first time to it or something?”

Elio grins fondly, “No, this idiot was making out with Chiara.”

“Who’s Chiara?”

“Exactly.” At that Elio’s grin turns a little bit sinister.

Sammy gives a comical look and says, “Did you… kill, Chiara _papa_?” but his joke is ignored by the lovers, too wrapped up in each other and the song.

“I wasn’t doing anything with Chiara for _this_ song.” Oliver rolls his eyes. “I was dancing by myself.”

“Good thing, too or you would have elbowed her eye out,” Elio titters as Oliver objects. “You were a little bit better when you danced with that woman in Rome, I’ll give you that.” 

But Oliver isn’t having it.

“You can’t talk, you threw up almost _immediately_ after!”

“Yeah, and then you kissed me, vomit mouth and all!” Elio counters, still grinning, but Oliver has a secret ace as he whispers his next words so only Elio can hear.

“Well at least I didn’t take out the pit of a peach and do unspeakable things to it with my pe—" Elio slams a hand over Oliver’s mouth with wide eyes and an incredulous smile.

“You _wouldn’t!”_ he exclaims. “In front of my children!”

At that Oliver’s smile softens as he laughs at Elio removing his hand. “No, I wouldn’t,” and then more tenderly, “You know how I feel about that incident.”

“What?” Sammy implores. “How you feel about what incident? Is it embarrassing? Tell me!”

But the moment has passed and the next song is playing.

“You are _never_ hearing that story,” Elio laughs, returning to the stove with Oliver still at his back, reaching up to massage a shoulder out of habit.

Jacob supposes the way his father and Elio are together is kind of adorable. It’s just still kind of weird for him to see his dad acting like this, especially because he was never like this with his mom even when they were in love… 

It’s nice though. He can acknowledge that it’s a beautiful thing, and he’s glad that his dad has it in his life. Without it Jacob wouldn’t have Emily or his new friends or his music or the sweet, sweet double bed coming his way.

His life would be worse if it weren’t for Elio Perlman, and you know… he doesn’t hate to admit it.

Jacob and Oliver end up staying the night, with Jacob staying in Marzia’s old room on the spare mattress. Elio and Oliver are lying in bed facing each other, talking softly and smiling.

“It was a nice day, wasn’t it?” Elio murmurs. 

“It really was,” Oliver agrees, eyes crinkling at the corners with his quiet happiness.

“Did you think any of that was going to be possible so soon at the start of this year?”

Oliver takes a moment to brush a few stray hairs behind Elio’s ear before he replies.

“I didn’t think something like today would ever be possible,” he says solemnly. 

Elio tilts his head. “Don’t get sad,” he says gently. “What’s been on your mind? You zoned out a couple of times today between conversations.”

Oliver breathes in and out, debating whether it’s worth bringing it up.

“I don’t know, I guess I was just thinking about how you were the same age Jacob is now when we were together, and if someone did to him what I did to you, I don’t know what I would—” 

“Shh, Oliver, you didn’t do anything to me,” Elio says with a incredulous frown and then a soft, knowing smile, placing a hand on his love’s cheek. “No one did anything to anyone. We were in love.” 

He waits a few moments for the words to sink in before continuing.

“I would have loved for one of my children to have had what we had. It was beautiful. I’m glad they explored with their own right people in their own right ways, but it was perfect for me and there’s no one I wouldn’t wish it on. How many people have the good fortune to find their twin soul at seventeen?”

That gets a smile out of Oliver.

“And the misfortune not to be together for twenty years because he’s an idiot,” he ribs raising an eyebrow.

“Oh Oliver,” Elio sighs. “You _are_ an idiot, but not for that. I wouldn’t change anything that happened, everything is too perfect now to risk it.”

“It is kind of perfect, isn’t it?” Oliver says with a private little smile before pulling Elio close to him, wrapping his arms around his love and squeezing. 

Elio gives a hum of contentment. “I love you, Elio,” he says.

“I love you, Oliver.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't believe we're almost done! Stick around for the epilogue to see where everyone ends up a few years in the future :') (usuals + Micol and Michael From the English Department, Sammy and Ava, Jennifer, etc.)
> 
> Please comment if you've enjoyed! It truly gives me life :')
> 
> Oh, I forgot for a bit but I always imagined the song Jacob was singing as [Hide and Seek](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4OLQB7ON9w) by Imogen Heap (hence the title of the fic, the whole thing was leading up to this lol)


	15. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey sorry this is super late - I literally wrote another super depressing 20,000 word fic between the last chapter of this and now yikes.
> 
> Been pretty blah lately (possibly related to how wildly depressing the other fic was to write even though I wanted to) so I found it hard to write something super fluffy like I wanted this to be... I tried, but it might be kind of disappointing. 
> 
> I done been tried so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Oliver is buttoning Elio’s cuff on the day of their wedding because they ‘don’t respect any rules at all’ according to a good-natured Vienne several days earlier. They stayed together all night and all morning – it’ll be an afternoon wedding because Elio still has not mastered the art of consistently getting up at a reasonable time and doesn’t want to yawn all the way through.

The bill was passed on July 24th – they’d been engaged for years at that point so the ceremony mattered much less to them than the deed being done as soon as possible. It’s a simple affair; family and friends, some flowers, some chairs, some music and an officiator; ‘No gifts necessary, just celebrate with us’.

Everyone thought Oliver would be the nervous wreck since he’s more likely to worry in general, but he’s not fazed at all on the day.

“I’ve done this before,” he shrugs lightly when Elio asks him why he’s not nervous as he wrestles with the button with only minutes before they’re to be joined in the eyes of the law. 

Elio is clearly trying to hold in his nerves but he’s not doing a very good job of it, and it’s making doing up his cufflinks very difficult.

“Stop shaking.”

“I can’t help it,” Elio whines.

“You play to audiences of thousands all the time, why does this make you nervous?” Oliver asks with a soft, amused smile as he tries to hold Elio’s hand still.

“Because I do that all the time. This is so much more important; I only get to do this once.”

“Hm, we could do it again if you wanted,” Oliver grins down at him. “One here, one in Italy, one in France…”

“You know how I feel about France,” Elio jokes, though it’s a little forced through his nerves.

“Not France then,” Oliver concedes. “We could go to Vegas and get unlawfully re-married?”

“That sounds horrendous,” Elio sighs, resigned to the fact that he’s probably going to stutter and cry his way through the whole thing. 

“Well just think about how bad this wedding _could_ have been then,” Oliver suggests as he finally finishes wrestling with the sleeve.

“I think I’ll just think about how you’ll still love me even if I _really_ fuck it up, instead,” Elio smiles, saccharine sweet and playful.

“I think I probably will still love you, yes,” Oliver agrees, leaning down to kiss his soon-to-be husband.

Elio does stutter and cry his way through the vows but everyone just ‘aw’s as Oliver smiles down at him throughout, rapt and adoring. Finally they’re allowed to kiss and at first it’s soft but very quickly there’s nothing sweet or tender about it at all. Sammy gives a laughing whoop and Vienne boos light-heartedly, and everything is perfect.

Everything is perfect when their first dance is to the Esposito song that saved Oliver that night so long ago. Everything is perfect when they cut the simple chocolate cake they almost forgot to order and when they kiss when the knife hits the bottom. Everything is perfect when they sit down to be served champagne liberally as they laugh with their friends and family for the rest of the night.

Nowadays Oliver is less inclined to be suspicious of this kind of perfection.

Micol and her now-husband Michael come over first, to kiss their cheeks and say their congratulations. It’s a little emotional for the slightly intoxicated ex-couple, as Micol is moving out of state in a few short weeks to stop teaching and finally pursue her PhD. Oliver will miss her and so will the boys and honestly probably Sammy too, but Oliver is is glad she has Michael with her. He smiles with Elio leaning his head on his shoulder while they watch the happily married couple return to their table. He’ll miss them but he couldn’t be more proud of Micol going after what she’s discovered she wants.

Everyone passes through to say well done and congratulations and such, but for the most part they’re all people Elio and Oliver will see again within the next week. 

It’s different when Oliver’s sister approaches their table. Jennifer is always put together and a little brisk sometimes, but there’s still something gentle in her careful hands and her soft, long, silver hair… Elio’s always thought she must be a wonderful doctor for her patients, even if she was never motherly.

“Congratulations, Oliver,” she says genuinely with a smile. 

“Thanks, Jen,” he returns, his own smile a little watery.

It’s true that Jennifer was never truly able to connect with Oliver as a sibling when they were younger, but over the years, with social media beginning to connect people they’ve begun to be more a part of each other’s lives – online if not in person. They can bond over more than their abuse now with the happier parts of their lives on display… Elio has enjoyed watching them get to know one another as they are now.

“You’ve done so well,” she says, a little proudly, before she turns to Elio for a moment. “Congratulations to you too, Elio.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” he grins, looking over to Oliver for a moment and giving him a quick peck. 

It’s jovial for a moment, but then Jennifer looks down, seeming to contemplate whether she should say something, before taking a deep breath and looking at Oliver. She says it like she’s been thinking it all evening and is just now getting it off her chest.

“I wish Donnie could have been here to see you today, grown and happy. I’m sure he would have been proud of you too.” Her voice is a little uncharacteristically shaky as she speaks, blinking so her eyes won’t get misty. 

Oliver may not remember much of Don, but Jennifer grew up with him, endured their home with him… She knew him better when he died. 

It’s a solemn moment in an otherwise joyous evening. Oliver nods, blinking away the glassiness in his eyes as well and taking a grounding breath as his sister smiles and heads back to her table where she’s been chatting with Annella and Sami all evening.

Oliver’s not about to break down – it would take a lot more on a day like today – but he does take a beat to lean into Elio’s side with his husband’s arm around his waist, studying all the wonderful people he somehow gets to have in his life.

Matty doesn’t have a girlfriend to bring right now but he seems unfazed, laughing on the dancefloor with Jacob and his – if you ask Elio and Oliver – pretty-soon-to-be fiancée, Alison. 

“If I had a bouquet I know who I’d be aiming for,” Elio murmurs as they watch on fondly. Oliver gives a soft laugh and resumes his people-watching.

Sammy is making everyone laugh with his moves, and it makes Elio giggle fondly, knowing that he can actually dance quite well when the mood strikes. His now-wife Ava is standing next to him laughing with her face in her hands, embarrassed until he pulls her towards him and gets her to jump with him as a more upbeat song comes on. Then she can’t keep the smile off her face and neither can he. 

It's just like their wedding.

It’s infectious.

Vienne and Charlotte broke up years and years ago, but with Vienne’s streak broken another came along soon enough and then another. Camille has made her very happy, Elio thinks. They’re sitting at a table not far off the dancefloor, Camille’s arm around Vienne as she makes apparently hilarious and definitely judgemental remarks about her brother’s dancing. Elio doesn’t think she’ll ever stop ribbing her brother, smiling at the thought. 

He also suspects Sammy and Jacob will be cancelling their rehearsal tomorrow, if their intoxicated antics are anything to go by. They’re currently passing a note to the DJ, who is really just one of their friends who offered his services essentially for free. The note is more or less exactly what they’re expecting from their drunken offspring, who are laughing like they’ve said something witty when the DJ reads out in an uncomfortable monotone.

“Um, it says, ‘Get up, old men, we can see you being fond and wistful from over here – go hard or go home cowards. Here is your,’ uh, ‘lame eighties make out song’.”

Elio and Oliver roll their eyes but they do laugh, as _‘Love My Way’_ comes on over the speakers, loudly. 

“This song is _not_ lame,” Oliver insists, turning to his husband.

“Come on,” Elio sighs as he stands, put-upon. “They’re not going to let us sit this one out.”

“Do we have to?” Oliver whines as he joins him, tired and more than a little tipsy. 

“Yes,” Elio confirms with a sigh before grinning. “Besides we should probably try to sober up or we’ll never make it to the coitus portion of the evening.”

“Fuck, but that’s my favourite part,” Oliver grins down at him as they enter the crowd. 

They’re much too tired and definitely too old to do any real dancing to this particular song, but they’re happy to satisfy the crowd with a little side to side dancing that barely qualifies as a slow dance. 

It earns them a little ‘boo’ from Sammy but eventually he leaves them be, twirling Ava around and around and laughing when she gets dizzy. Marzia and Mark come up to do a slow dance of their own, soon joined by Micol, Michael, Vienne and Camille, and then suddenly everyone who matters to Elio and Oliver is on this dance floor with them dancing to a song from when they first collided.

For about the millionth time since the divorce Oliver’s mind goes blissfully blank, and he just thinks… 

_This is perfect. Everything is perfect._

Several days later they’re curled up in front of the TV trying to decide what to watch when Elio asks.

“Did you know that at the wedding Sammy got so drunk he told Vienne that the reason Jacob didn’t say anything snarky when he came here for lunch the first time was because he had a massive, intimidating crush on her?”

“Oh my god, is that what she was laughing so hard about?”

“That’s what she _and_ Alison were laughing about, for like, half an hour,” Elio laughs, full and long. “He’s never going to live it down, I don’t think he’s fully forgiven Sammy yet.”

“He should never have trusted Sammy with that information,” Oliver sighs around a smile. 

“Free champagne,” Elio shrugs. “He’s lucky she lives in France; she’ll only have so many chances to laugh at him,” he sighs with a warm-hearted smile, as they keep scrolling through.

“I hate this,” Oliver eventually groans after a few fruitless minutes. “Before streaming you just watched whatever was on. It takes way too long to pick something now.”

Elio nudges his side with a smirk. “You, my dear sweet Oliver, are far too privileged. I can cancel the subscription if you’d like and we can go back to watching shitty B movies on TV and sitting through the ads.”

 _“Noo,”_ Oliver groans.

“That’s what I thought,” Elio says, self-satisfied. “Shall we just catch up on the show the kids are always talking about?”

Oliver makes a face, “I’m not really in the mood.”

“But we’ll be seeing them tomorrow and you know they won’t be able to keep from spoiling it.”

“How did we raise such gremlins? We’re great.”

“I think we’re pretty great,” Elio grins warmly up at his husband. And his thoughts echo Oliver’s at the wedding as he presses play. 

_Maybe this is less significant in terms of life events, but… this is perfect. I think I’m just as happy now watching my husband squint to keep from seeing the gore on screen as I was dancing with him at our wedding._

Elio wants to tell Oliver how much he loves him in that moment but he knows he knows that, and he doesn’t want to spoil the moment, so instead he lays his head on his husband’s chest and basks in the moment, until Oliver notices him and breaks the stillness with a gentle kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope it was aight, I'm gonna try to write something super fluffy now - I was listening to Lady Gaga's first album and it popped into my head what Oliver would think if Elio wrote those songs for her and I've kind of been writing that... is anyone interested in that piece of fluff??
> 
> Please do leave a comment, they makes me the happy :')
> 
> Edit: y'all, [this chick's happiness covering this song](https://youtu.be/1YlSa1wJKz8?t=85) has made me happier than I've been all week - her smile and her dance moves remind me of myself when I'm happy :')))
> 
> Though the [version I remember from St Trinian's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aljILXsKyvY) will forever be the one that makes me smile the most 😂


End file.
